Severus Snape and the Inconsistency of Time
by Olenska
Summary: It's been ten years since the Second Wizarding War, and just when the Ministry of Magic started to get comfortable… Hannah Abbott, Independent Magical Accountant, turns everything upside down. Starring: insubordinate Department of Mysteries, Severus Snape in the (somewhat tarnished) flesh, ridiculous portrait of Lucius Malfoy and time particles in their pure form.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes:** This is my own translation of a fanfic that I grew very attached to. You can find the Polish version here. I hope you will love it as much as I do. Oh, and to my absolute delight, now I was finally able to show one of my character's true colours! Meaning: accent. Gotta love English. Okay, ladies and gents, let's get on with it, shall we? Yes, I think we shall.

 **Disclaimer:** As you all might have already figured out, I am, in fact,  not J.K. Rowling, nor do I claim any rights to the world and characters she created. Everything you see here is a figment of my twisted imagination and was written purely for my amusement. Any resemblance between the characters in this story and any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental (except you, Jessica… B—ch).

* * *

 **2006**

* * *

Hannah Abbott tried to do whatever she could to leave behind her altogether silly teenage years. Her sudden attempts to grow interest in literature other than _Witch Weekly_ were rather hopeless, though she did finally become very fond of puzzles and crosswords, especially that one in the Muggle _Times._ It turns out that her initial efforts in the logical department weren't half as futile as she thought they would be, so Hannah decided to pursue her career in management and magical accounting — because nothing says "sensible" quite like numbers.

Pleased with today's quarterly financial statement, she stretched out her legs and straightened the desk plate that said: "Hannah Abbott — Independent Accountant". She was proud of the cosy little life she had built for herself. Professionally, she was at the top of the ladder, romantically… Well, maybe not so much but the weekend is coming and surely something nice along with it. Nothing was going to spoil that particularly pleasant Thursday afternoon.

'Fifteen more minutes and then lunch?' Hannah rather stated than asked.

Beatrice Stevens, the witch sitting by the desk next to Hannah's, belonged to that exceptionally annoying category of people who always just pretended to work and never really did anything. She leaned out from behind _Cosmopolitan_ and tried to look apologetically.

'Don't know. I'm totally swamped.'

Hannah was just about to say something but suddenly her ancient, brick-like computer monitor, adapted to support the magical accountancy program CHARM (Central Harmonious Accountancy and Relevant Magic) started glowing blue, then flickered and finally switched off completely.

'Oh no. No, no, no!' Hannah, utterly mortified, slapped the screen once or twice and when that didn't change anything, she started to hit it with all her might.

'No, no, no! My whole quarterly statement!' she moaned. 'Work, damn it! What's the matter with you!'

Beatrice hid behind her magazine and said:

'It might be a fuse. Couple of days ago Jessica from the fifth opened an unauthorised Floo connection and all her data went to shit.'

'Merlin's beard…'

'Try Flooing to the IT.'

The sheer idea of doing so frightened Hannah more than the perspective of losing her statement.

'What? I'll fix it myself!' She tried to lift the monitor up, but it was too heavy.

'Iggy Pratt?' Beatrice sighed and frowned suspiciously when Hannah turned red.

'Oh, great Morgana!' She smacked Hannah with her _Cosmo._ 'One of these days you're just gonna have to try and talk to him! Like people do!'

'Never!'

The screen was then swat with a stapler but that didn't seem to work either.

'Listen.' Beatrice finally rose from her chair and sounded way more scientific than she should in her position. 'You really must read this article. There's this personality test to it that will totally change your views on relationships.'

She then covered the screen with _Cosmopolitan,_ which caused Hannah's left eyelid to twitch frantically. Hannah pushed her friend aside and whipped out her wand, now starting to wave it around desperately.

'We didn't even go on a single date. Why should I bother?' she said. 'What am I even going to say?'

'I thought he finally asked you out.'

'He did! And then stood me up! Arsehole.'

'Are you trying to cast a Healing Spell on your computer?'

'Maybe…'

Hannah sighed and fell into her chair, slowly getting acquainted with the thought of having to visit the IT office but then the monitor flickered and started to flash blue again. Hannah nearly jumped and grabbed the machine from both sides, squinting her eyes and trying to read the message on the screen:

' _Your files are exactly where you left them_? WHAT!'

'If I were a computer that has just messed with your whole quarterly statement, I'd probably say the same,' said Beatrice.

'But… what does it even mean?'

'Have you tried turning the Network off and on again?'

'No, CHARM is not compatible with Floo.'

'So it's not a virus.'

'Merlin knows what it is!'

A couple of minutes later, when Hannah was already forming her monthly notice in her head, the message on the screen disappeared. Instead, the former Hufflepuff was greeted with good, old and familiar white tables — full of numbers and other data.

'Sweet Helga, thank you!' She grabbed her monitor and made a solemn promise to herself that next time she will definitely, totally, absolutely make a backup. Just as she was toying with an idea of some sort of a good spirit that was surely keeping an eye on her, the numbers in the tables flickered and started to multiply — first slowly, then faster and faster, finally reaching impossible quantities.

'Hannah…' Beatrice looked over her shoulder and pointed to one of the recapitulation columns. The department responsible for the mess seemed to be the Department of Mysteries.

'Oh no, don't! This isn't happening!' Hannah ran to the door.

'Where are you going?'

'Crowley cannot see those numbers!'

The desperate accountant rushed through the corridor in a frantic race against time. However, she did not expect to run into a, quite substantial, obstacles, which here means: two janitors armed with mops drenched in perilous floor rinse. Hannah slipped spectacularly and banged her head against the floor. One of the men dressed in denim overalls impatiently knocked his mop against the sign that said: "Caution! Wet floor!"

'Can't Hufflepuffs read?' He stood over her and tsk-tsked disapprovingly. "Goyle, hand me that rag, will yeh? The damned witch made smudges."

* * *

The main problem with places that accumulate high level of magic is that sometimes they end up attracting unpredictable anomalies. Tensions in the magical aura surrounding the Ministry of Magic could not, however, be held entirely accountable for the afternoon's turmoil — though such concentration of unstable aura could indeed be potentially dangerous, the head of the Financial Department always paid close attention to it. He would never allow it to cause any unpredictable costs — since he always kept a neat budget, obviously.

It goes without saying that when that fateful afternoon CHARM suddenly spit out those dreadful sums, Silas Crowley was not amused. He immediately threw in some Floo powder into his fireplace and, as soon as he saw the Operator's head, he roared:

'Get me accountancy! The noo!'

* * *

Minerva McGonagall was used to facing the impossible. Having lived through two Wizarding Wars, many personal disasters, the fall and rise of Voldemort and long and painful term of office of Cornelius Fudge, it is safe to assume that she was a woman prepared for the worst. However, she never even suspected that sudden disruptions in her daily routine would happen in the very first week of the new semester. Since the Weasley twins were long done with pursuing their educational excellence, things were rarely out of the ordinary at Hogwarts.

"Well, I never!" she murmured disapprovingly towards the tea saucer that started to tremble uncontrollably as soon as she put her cup down.

After that, when her whole desk followed and the whole school was shaken from the dungeons to the roof, the Headmistress retreated to the window and begrudgingly turned her head towards the portrait of Severus Snape.

'Your Slytherins at it again?' she grunted but was surprised to see that the Potions Master was absent from his canvas.

Before she could farther consider that fact, the whole floor shuddered again.

'As Gryffindor is my witness, what is going on here?'

She rushed towards the door, which unexpectedly opened ajar without the smallest interference on her part.

'Professor!'

On the doorstep to her office stood a sixth year Gryffindor, completely short of breath. She looked scared out of her wits. Her robes were so stained that Minerva wondered if the girl had poured on herself the entire contents of her cauldron and her face and tie looked soiled — as if she had taken part in a pyrotechnical experiment of some sort.

'Miss Carter.' Minerva was trying to stay calm. At first she wanted to comment on such flagrant violations of the established rules concerning school uniforms, but decided to do so later. 'Will you please explain what is going on in the dungeons?'

'It's… Professor, it's _him!_ ' The horrified student covered her mouth and leaned onto the antique armchair that stood nearby.

'Him?'

The Gryffindor moaned and rubbed her forearms, nodding.

'Miss Carter, please control yourself.' Minerva guided her towards a chair, trying not to think too much of the situation. 'Slowly and clearly: what is going on there? Who is 'he'?'

'He's back!' squeaked Carter, nearly reduced to tears. 'I don't know how, I don't know why but he's back! He just… He just came out of the wall!'

'What? Miss Carter, please stop saying nonsense. None of our resident ghosts is-…'

'He is in the dungeons and he's terrorising Professor Goodart!' The Gryffindor waved her hands, as if trying to highlight her point.

'A ghost?'

'Worse!'

Then the girl repeated herself about the wall, which made McGonagall sigh and decide that there was nothing else for her to do but go down there and see it for herself. It must have been one of the students. A failed potions experiment, it must be some sort of _Confundus_ effect. Not to worry, though. A quick _Finite Incantatem_ and she'll be able to get back to her tea and documents. Of course she'll probably have to put another kettle on…

Suddenly, the Gryffindor started to give out hysterical sobs. Minerva was almost sure that between her mumblings she had heard a more than familiar name. But… No, surely not.

'Miss Carter, that's quite enough. Please go see Madam Pomfrey and wait for me in the Hospital Wing.'

'But…' Huge, tearful eyes were fixed on Minerva, who was slowly losing her temper.

'Now, Miss Carter!'

When the still trembling girl raced down the stairs, jumping over every other step, McGonagall looked at the amused portrait of Albus Dumbledore, who was currently struggling to get a caramel out of the rustling paper.

'If it's Voldemort again, I will _Avada_ him myself,' she informed him curtly.

'Now, now, my dear' he sucked on the candy with obvious content 'even he wouldn't invade us right before the weekend.'

* * *

When Hannah started to regain consciousness, the first thing she saw was her boss' alarmed face. His dark eyebrows were frowned so hard that they nearly met above his crooked nose and the angered looks he was giving her were not a sort of thing one would like to see after having just fainted. Hannah, quite obviously, tried to get out of there immediately, but two strong hands firmly pressed her into the armchair.

'There, Miss Abbott, no sudden movements,' said someone behind her.

When she turned, she saw an older man in a healer uniform. He was just taking off his stethoscope and packing an old-fashioned medical bag.

'Sae she's gonnae be okay?' asked Silas Crowley, in whose armchair, as she finally realised, she was currently sitting.

'Mr. Crowley, I'm not a Seer,' replied the healer, scribbling something on a prescription that he begrudgingly handed to the younger wizard.

'But if ye hud tae guess…'

'In that case I would also have to consider changing my profession. Healing magic is not a jigsaw puzzle, sir! Good day to you,' he growled and put on his fedora before slamming the door behind him.

Hannah was silent and Silas looked with righteous indignation on the prescription and then on the door, as if it had insulted him personally. The young accountant eyed the eerie and gloomy office that she had seen only twice before and had no intention of staying in any longer than necessary. At the same time she pondered why was her boss so concerned for her. When Crowley finally looked at her and loosened his tie even more, she saw fear in his eyes. Suddenly everything was clear.

He was afraid. And she knew exactly why. There was only one thing that the head of the Financial Department was scared of, namely — lawsuits. He clearly thought that she was going to… How does it go? Sue him for 'failing to ensure a safe work environment'? She will have to look into that. For a moment Hannah has lost control over her own face and she smiled brightly. Crowley, seeing that she was better, outstretched his arm and handed her the prescription, as if scared that any kind of human contact might turn him into a frog.

'Ye feelin better?' he asked, unconvinced of his own concern.

Hannah stopped smiling at once and fell into the armchair. She glanced upon a creepy, stuffed raven that stood in the corner and pressed her cold palms to her cheeks.

'I don't know. I'm a bit dizzy, actually,' she whispered, as convincingly as she possibly could.

If, as she suspected, she was to be fired for her tragic mistake in the financial statement, at least she was going to get a proper requital out of it.

'Ye hit yer heid, yoo're gonnae be fine,' Silas stated the obvious, then flicked his wand and summoned a bottle of water from a mini-fridge that was enchanted to look like a vintage trunk.

'Everything's… Kind of blurry,' said Hannah, graciously accepting the water as if she were the queen of England, but then gave it back. 'I can't open it,' she hinted, trying to look like a proper damsel in distress.

Crowley, being one of those who avoided having people over as much as he humanly could, opened the bottle so forcefully that he spilled most of the cold water on his desk and on Hannah. The accountant screeched and jumped, while Crowley swore under his breath, his accent even more pronounced than usual. Before Hannah could think of any excuse for the irrefutable denial of her earlier stories about her agonising state, the office door opened abruptly. In it stood Perseus Jones, the young vice-head of the main division of the Unspeakables.

'Crowley!'

'Jones, git oot!' Silas, impossibly busy with trying to dry his Extremely Important Scrolls, didn't even notice how excited his friend was.

'Crowley, you have to see this! We found-… Oh, just come!' Jones didn't even look at Hannah, who was currently calculating the chances of her not getting her head ripped of by Crowley.

'What th' heel ur ye gettin oan aboot?'

'We found your whole budget and something… Something even better! Merlin's beard, Crowley, come on!'

Having said that, Perseus stormed out of the office just as suddenly as he appeared. Silas shook his head and ordered Hannah before he ran out too:

'Abbott, wait fur me 're!'

Pacing the corridors and passages of the Ministry, Crowley wondered what the hell could be going on here. When the two wizards went into the elevator and descended to the Department of Mysteries, the familiar, cold and irrational shiver went down Crowley's spine. It's been more than ten years and he still couldn't get over what the Death Eaters did here after Voldemort murdered Rufus Scrimgeour.

'We there yit?' he grumbled, following Perseus through pitch-black corridors and feeling more and more unsure.

'You're kidding me, right? I could get into so much trouble for this and you're complaining?'

'Whaur we gaan?'

'You're the only person from the outside who'll be able to see this!'

'Aye, _that_ is precisely what's worryin me.'

'Stop your whining.' Perseus pushed open the heavy doors at the end of the dark corridor and came through first.

Silas stopped talking and let his friend take the lead. The round, black hall was lit only by the torches on the walls and their gloomy, blue flames. Jones immediately knew which door to choose next and so Crowley followed, really not wanting to stay there alone. When they came to the next hall, the first thing he noticed was the smell. It smelled of dirt, rotting wood and air that stood still for at least a couple of years. The two wizards found themselves in a room that resembled a dark cave. There, in the very middle of it, stood an eerie stone arch and from its insides gaped a dark, cosmic hole, glowing with an inner shine that resembled a supernova. The light and the smoke curling in it, along with spectral whispers coming from the inside, made Silas' skin crawl.

'Is 'at-…?'

'It used to be,' explained Perseus, noticeably excited. 'Now… We don't even know what it is. A group of interns messed something up this morning, we're still cleaning up after them, and so then it turns out… It turns out that it has some sort of a field! Do you even know what kind of permeability we're talking about?'

'Permeability?' Silas blinked a couple of times.

'Of the light waves.'

'Start 'spikin bludy English, will ye?'

Perseus was almost glowing with joy.

'What you're seeing, Crowley, is the Ether.'

'The Ether?' Crowley stepped closer to the arch but was immediately stopped by the Unspeakable.

'We still don't know how far it reaches. Stay where you are.'

''Hoo far? Whit is 'at? Ah thooght it was some kin' ay a portal an-…''

'Because it is a portal. That's the problem. We still don't know whether it's stable or not or how it even happened but we know that something has-…'

'Impossible!' Silas stepped even farther back. 'Impossible! All portals waur closed an' e'en if ye cood reopen 'em... They wooldnae look like 'at! ' He pointed at the milling, cosmic light. 'Somebody must hae messed wi' it!'

'That's what I thought! At first we started to make calculations but there was no interference from the outside.'

'Yer tellin me something's gotten oot!'

'Today we tested the light beams.' Perseus picked up a random pebble and threw it into the portal. 'Look.'

Something in the inside hissed and then started to swirl and explode with bright light. Then, ghostly streaks of something that looked like liquid moonstone emerged from the portal. It stopped moving only to suddenly blow up again, turning into what seemed to be hundreds of thousands of grains of sand that stopped in the air just in front of the two wizards.

'Wha' th' bloody hell is 'at?' Crowley couldn't believe his eyes.

Perseus smiled and touched some of the grains, which now resembled tiny, gleaming diamonds.

'Time particles. In their pure form.'

* * *

The first thing that Minerva McGonagall saw when she entered the dungeons was a trembling group of distressed Gryffindors, trying to calm one another. They whispered to each other and some of them looked like they needed immediate medical attention. Once they noticed Professor McGonagall, most of them relaxed instantly.

'Go back to your Common Room,' she said and they complied without an ounce of hesitation.

They rushed towards the main corridor and ran up the stairs, while the already worried Headmistress pushed open the door that led to the potions classroom. Normally she would have expected to find there the décor to which, after nine years, she was already used. However, in those circumstances, she remained extremely vigilant. Minerva had a hunch that no _Confundus_ was in fact responsible for that mess — especially since the new Potions Professor was not an incompetent witch. In general, Minerva could trust her when it came to the students' safety. Even though sometimes her decorating aspirations had a tendency to slip out of control.

Euphemia Goodart, a plump witch in her mid-fifties, thanks to few tasteful paintings, nice lighting and pleasant gold-and-purple wallpapers was able to turn this particularly nasty lair into a more than bearable surrounding. By the way, Minerva thought that this makeover actually did the classroom and the subject a lot of good. She didn't miss the hysteria and the panic attacks that followed the previous Potions Master's infamous reputation.

When Minerva closed the door behind her, what she saw was virtually impossible to be adequately described. The new Potions Professor stood in the corner, pressed against the wall, and looked positively terrified. She was looking at someone who was eagerly throwing books off the shelves. Just before Minerva, in the middle of the largest wall, outstretched a hole, which shone with warm, glistening light and was buzzing with an inner energy of its own. A thread-like material gleamed around its edges like a supernatural spider's web. The entire floor was covered in potions remains and littered with overturned desks and cauldrons. And there, in front of the bookshelf that was usually holding rows of neatly stacked books, stood…

'Impossible!' whispered Professor McGonagall, tucking in her wand and looking anxiously at Professor Goodart.

The terrified witch gasped while the man continued to throw on the floor her, until recently, perfectly arranged potions textbooks and other scientific volumes.

'Nonsense,' growled a horse, unpleasant voice.

'Rubbish!' Another book landed in a puddle of spilled potion with a loud 'plop'.

'A disgrace in its merits!'

 _Slam!_ Another book flew right in front of Minerva.

'Horrifyingly incompetent translation, this has to be read in the original… Though I can't see those dunderheads getting much out of it.'

When he got hold of another book, he straightened up and made the sound of a basilisk suddenly awakened from its slumber.

'Well, really! One does sometimes wonder how is it even possible for some to purchase a scientific position that lacks a proper bibliography!' Having said that, he turned around and faced Professor McGonagall, who cried out in shock and took a few steps back, hitting her leg on one of the overturned cauldrons.

'Minerva.'

Right in front of her, barefoot and in a somewhat tarnished robe that used to be black, stood Severus Snape himself — the converted Death Eater, double spy, until recently presumed dead war hero and a teacher from hell, responsible for the trauma of generations of students.

'I can see that you decided to redecorate my classroom.' Snape smiled sardonically.

'It's not your classroom anymore,' whispered the Headmistress, trying not to look too much into the portal.

She had a gut feeling that the more she looked; the more she got the urge to jump into it.

'Excuse me?' Snape seemed to be honestly surprised with the information, so she decided to enlighten him.

'Severus… You died,' she said, as firmly as she could. 'Nearly ten years ago.'

Initially shocked, he impatiently adjusted one of his torn sleeves, stained with a silvery substance of an unidentified origin, and looked around the dungeon with a clear disgust.

'And _this_ is the person you decide to replace me with?' He gestured towards Professor Goodart, who, as soon as Snape shifted his attention to her, let out an agonising scream.

'Please… I didn't mean to! If only I had known that-… How were we supposed to know that you didn't in fact-… That…'

'Severus, please.' McGonagall finally decided to approach him and took away the book he was still holding, with which he was suddenly unwilling to part. 'You're dead.'

'Yes, go towards the light,' shrieked Professor Goodart. 'Over there!' She pointed at the portal, still trembling with fear.

'I will not go towards any bleeding-…!'

'SEVERUS!'

'The woman decided to hang wallpapers, Minerva!'

'Well, nobody forbids the teachers to decorate their classrooms.'

'It's _my_ dungeon!'

'Technically, it's mine,' said Minerva, ending the discussion. 'Sit.'

She beckoned towards one of the desks, where the confused Potions Master was finally seated as if he were a stubborn pupil. He was glaring at the portal, his breath heavy and hoarse.

'Severus… You remember the Shrieking Shack?' McGonagall decided to go around it gently.

'I remember,' he admitted. 'But not much else. Nothing after that. Not this.' He gestured towards the portal. 'Nor the… Moments before.' He waved his hand around, trying to mean something by it, however Minerva couldn't even begin to imagine what.

'Has it really been ten years?' he asked promptly, straightening up his usually slightly hunched back and looking at the Headmistress piercingly.

Even if he was some sort of a ghost that was not yet known to the Wizarding World, Professor McGonagall had to admit that he was quite convincing. Because Severus couldn't really… Magic couldn't _really_ bring anything back to life, could it?

Before she was able to suppress her thoughts, it was too late. Dead or not, Severus Snape remained an inhumanly skillful Legilimens.

'Salazar have mercy!' he roared, slamming his hand against the desk. 'If I really were dead, would I be able to do this?' He stood up and grabbed a piece of the stripped, cream wallpaper and then yanked half of it down in one, sharp movement.

This turned out to be too much for Professor Goodart who, with a quiet rustle of her robes, finally fell to the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

Draco Malfoy was promptly awakened at dawn… a bit over two in the afternoon. Which in itself was a terrible beginning of the day, thankyouverymuch. To make matters worse, the source of the unbearable noise, which thoroughly penetrated Draco's utterly hungover skull, seemed to have been coming from the front door. The uninvited guests were apparently not giving up, either; not even when Draco decided to roll around in his sheets for the next whole five minutes, pretending nobody was home. He finally gave in and ran down the stairs, fretfully adjusting his bathrobe – embroidered with the family's crest. He opened the heavy front door with a flick of his wand, only to rapidly slam them shut again.

"Oh no! No, no, no!"

Draco leaned on the door, firmly pushing on it with all his might, just to make sure.

"But Draco!"

"I will not fall for the same trick again!"

"Pardon?" The voice at the other side of the door seemed genuinely surprised, which Draco thought to be an utter impertinence.

"Have you all gone mad there?" he yelled. "Have you really been holding onto his greasy hair just to gift me an aneurism for my birthday?"

Awkward silence fell heavily like a butcher's knife.

"My, is it June already?"

"Not now, Severus."

"Do they sell anywhere birthday cards with "Please accept those ten overdue cards" on them?"

"Severus!"

"Ahem."

"Pack your bags!" yelled Draco. "I don't have time for your Polyjuice Potion pranks."

"Draco, for Godric's sake…" Minerva McGonagall was trying to reason with him, while the voice that belonged to the Man-Who-Was-Pretending-Really-Well-But-Most-Certainly-Was-Not-Severus said calmly:

"Alohomora."

The treacherous lock popped and the door promptly opened, accompanied by infernal screeching and a couple of Malfoy's unrefined remarks. The Headmistress immediately retrieved her wand from the Potions Master and went inside.

"How dare you!" growled Draco, pirouetting towards Minerva with such vigour that he almost fell on the slippery floor.

This temporary loss of face was, however, swiftly masked with a full-on scowl of superiority and disgust.

"It's two in the afternoon. I would say the hour is more than suitable for a friendly visit," said Minerva, while Certainly-Not-Snape sneered so viciously, that he almost resembled the original. If Draco hadn't known better, he might have just gotten fooled.

"What is this?" He pointed at the impostor, who was looking around with an unexpected interest in the interior.

"I came to visit."

"From beyond the grave?"

"Happy birthday."

The impostor smirked in a way that suggested an impending doom of the world as we know it.

Draco felt a cold shiver going down his spine, though he quickly composed himself and said:

"This is an outrage! Leave! Now!"

"Draco." Professor McGonagall tried to reason with him again. "This is a most delicate matter. You must understand that Severus couldn't… I couldn't let him stay at Hogwarts, it–"

"This isn't Severus!" roared Malfoy. "What kind of a flying circus is that? How dare you!"

"I had doubts myself, believe–"

"No!"

"Well." She pursed her lips tightly. "I don't see a portal from an outer space opening in your dungeons, and I dare say… Such situation makes one look at certain matters from an entirely different perspective. Wouldn't you agree?"

The Headmistress sounded entirely serious, which made Draco wonder, if there perhaps was a teeny, tiny possibility that maybe… Maybe he's gone mad and should slap himself for not casting better locking spells on his own goddamn front door.

"Who is that guy anyway?" Draco pointed at the impostor.

"Please." The man sneered nastily.

"Well, I have to hand it to you, your gifts are just as shitty as his." Draco eyed him up and down resentfully.

"I bought you your first My Little Alchemy!"

Draco, carefully considering the above, immediately thought that the fraud was either very well informed, or… No. No, no, no. Surely not.

"Well. As I just said, Minerva, I really appreciate this sudden concern for my sense of humour, maybe next year you'll finally buy me that pony for which I–"

Absolutely–Not–Snape scowled, murmuring something about "My First Proper Potion" being the best gift he could have afforded at the time. Then he added something about abominable teacher's salary, looking accusingly at Professor McGonagall. Draco decided to inform the fraud just how wrong he really was, since he couldn't really vent his resentment on the real Severus:

"Undoubtedly, ingenious gift, Sev." He smirked sarcastically. "Why, every three-year-old is simply yearning to blow themselves sky-high!"

"They don't put such ingredients in those sets. You'd have to be a proper Longbottom, to make it–"

"Severus!"

"Hm?" His scowl was even more pronounced than before. "What's that, Minerva? The war heroes are now, I presume, one of the top ten things one shouldn't even dream to comment upon?"

"Neville helped us defeat–"

"Is that so?" I-Am-Standing-Here-And-Pretending-To-Be-The-Dead-Guy looked even more pleased with himself, while the Headmistress looked more and more annoyed.

"–Nagini!"

"My-my… Excuse me while I don't curtsy, I must have been very busy then."

He casually strolled down the hall and stopped in front of a marble bust of Hannibal Malfoy III.

"Perhaps I was laying somewhere, utterly forgotten, who knows…" He pretended to appreciate the sculpture, therefore pushing the whole responsibility to explain on Minerva.

"Who is that moron?" Draco pointed at the man, who was scratching Hannibal's nose with his fingernail, as if trying to check if the marble was real. "Be careful with that!" roared the owner of said sculpture, particularly sensitive about his home interior.

Snape… that is: the moronic impostor, ignored Draco fully. However, Professor McGonagall began to slowly explain the whole thing, and the more she talked and the further she went with the, utterly absurd, story, the more Draco began to think that maybe his today's hangover was not a remain of the yesterday's party, but a full-blown alcohol poisoning with additional hallucinations. Yes. That explains everything. She didn't let Draco say anything until she finished. Her tale, since it must have been a very elaborate tale, and a despicable attempt on his life (on his birthday!), left Malfoy utterly speechless. He was silent, and in silence he wondered if now was the right time to try and push those two out the door again.

"… and you see now, this is why he couldn't stay at Hogwarts. The students are terrified. At this point the rumours are turning into legends–"

"What about Professor Goodart?" Draco asked, suddenly entirely serious.

"Difficult to say. The healers say she should make full recovery… One day. However… At this moment, the prognosis is rather… unoptimistic."

"Ha!" The-Guy-Who-Just-Started-To-Look-More-And-More-Like-Snape found himself in front of Lucius Malfoy's portrait. Lucius looked down on him with a clear contempt.

"Lucius had it painted?"

At this point, Minerva was clearly amused, as she didn't quite get the chance to tell Snape about his own magnificent portrait that hanged in the Slytherin dungeon. Not to mention the one in her own office, though that particular canvas, for reasons unknown, has remained empty.

"He didn't really, I mean…" Draco sent him a painful look, when Lucius waved his arms and screeched:

"Jump!"

"Pardon?" asked Snape.

"Kettle!" chirped Lucius, who then put his hands on his hips and turned around.

"Yes, Lucius hadn't quite taken into account all the pros and cons." Draco approached the painting and quickly pulled the rope hanging next to it, immediately covering up the obvious bungle with a curtain. An emerald curtain, of course.

Snape raised one eyebrow, while Minerva really tried not to show her amusement. Her cheeks even turned slightly pink. Draco, however, was feeling rather nauseous.

"He clearly wasn't a good listener… And so he didn't listen when they said not to paint a magical portrait while the object is still alive." Draco waved his arm at the artistic catastrophe, while the protagonist of which was still shouting nonsense from behind the curtain.

"Yes, it is what it is now," Malfoy sighed.

"Wait. Lucius is alive?"

To McGonagall's amazement, Severus seemed to be rather pleased.

"He's in… Azkaban," she said, as quietly as possible, at which point Draco glared at her critically.

"Excuse me, you lowered your voice because I could have heard you or because Lucius' portrait could? Believe you me, I've known this for years."

"How is he?"

I-Am-Standing-Here-And-Not-Even-Swooshing-My-Black-Robes sneered so evilly, that Draco was beginning to suspect him of having some serious acting background. No one, absolutely no one, could ever sneer like that, except…

"I don't know, I don't even care!" Draco yelled and marched towards the front door. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I bid you all farewell. It's been grand, indeed."

"He will soon be out. For good behaviour," said Minerva.

She then looked at Draco, who murmured something begrudgingly.

"Oh, don't give me that look, Draco! He'd have found sooner than later. He was a double spy, you know."

"I must say being dead certainly gives one a more dignified status." Snape tried to peek under the emerald cover, upon which Draco pulled him by his tarnished robes.

"You must see, Draco, it is your duty to hide him!" said Minerva, suddenly bargaining again, really quickly this time, so that Malfoy couldn't cut in – not for the lack of trying…

"He can't stay in the castle, only you can keep him safe. Who knows what they'll want to accuse him of after all these years? His name will be smeared all over the papers, not to mention he may even end up in Azkaban!"

While talking, she walked towards the door, which she then opened in one swift movement. All the while Draco was walking behind her, trying to get a word in, though unsuccessfully. The door slammed shut behind Minerva and when Malfoy opened them again, the only thing he heard was a loud Disapparition crack. After a moment, he turned towards his other "guest", who was altogether too calm to Draco's taste.

"You're not Severus," he growled. "And I don't need a roommate."

"On the contrary," said the other man, sneering in a way that, when on his best, made the first-year Hufflepuffs squeal with fright.

Draco grew silent, then finally shut the door and went to the drawing room.

"Either way, you better go, pal. Your little Order of the whatever has had enough fun at my expense."

Draco went straight to the minibar and poured himself a whisky.

Though, to be entirely truthful, he wasn't very fond of it. That is why he kept a secret – from his guests and, frankly, the angry ghosts of his ancestors. The crystal carafe meant for whisky really contained peach iced tea, which Draco was now sipping from Blacks family glass. The other man looked around for a bit, sat in front of Malfoy, but then changed his mind and approached the minibar.

"What are you squirming for?" growled Draco. "You really don't have to pretend, even Severus wasn't so paranoid. Sit down, damn it."

"This bathrobe really looked better on Lucius."

"What?"

"Well…" Snape moved his finger along the back of the minibar, until something clicked.

Having opened Malfoy Senior's secret compartment, he took out a somewhat dusty bottle that turned out to be vintage Ogden's Old Firewhisky. Draco suddenly sat straight, utterly bewildered, while Snape held the bottle up to the light and smirked arrogantly.

"First of, Draco, either keep your legs together, or next time put something underneath."

* * *

"What do you think?"

Professor Vector shook her head in disbelief.

"I'm… I'm not even sure what to say, Minerva."

She approached the portal, which was still spurting out crystal particles. Glistening mist hovered under the dungeon ceiling and the black-and-red space in the hole effervesced in its own rhythm.

"When did this even happen?"

Septima stretched out her hand but Minerva stopped her before she could touch anything.

"Better not."

The other witch stepped aside, though her head was still full of theories and questions.

"Are you able to close it?" asked Minerva.

"Are you kidding? No living wizard even remembers portals ever existed! I could work out its range but that won't tell us much, anyway."

Septima put back her wand in her pocket.

"Are you… entirely sure that what came through is really Severus?"

"We have to keep it between us. For now, at least."

"Good luck!" Vector snorted, ruining the serious mood.

Minerva frowned slightly, pretending not to have heard that.

"It's only a matter of time before the news spreads between the students. In fact, I'd be very surprised if it already hadn't."

"Stop…"

"Minerva, we're talking about hormone-infused teens, who are hungry for gossip. You think they don't already know that poor Joan is in St. Mungo's?"

Professor McGonagall decided not to answer that and change the subject instead:

"What about our library, then?"

"What about it?"

"Maybe we'll find something in the Restriced Section?"

Vector smirked wryly.

"Not after what Voldemort did to it."

"Here we go…"

The Headmistress shook her head and went to the door. This whole buzzing and sizzling of the cosmic matter was making her nervous. Professor Vector followed her, taking one last glance before Minerva locked the door behind them.

"It was one of the best magical library in the whole of Britain, I'm quite right to be mad," said Septima.

"And after ten long years we've managed to restore most of it."

"Most."

"Merlin's beard, Septima, they're just books!"

The younger witch made a face that suggested McGonagall should retract those words immediately, which the Headmistress thoroughly ignored. They both headed towards the stairs.

"How are your Gryffindors?" asked Vector finally.

"Traumatised."

"Not to worry. After all, they're Gryffindors."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Septima took one last look at the Potions classroom, before they both left the dungeons.

"They're kind of genetically attributed to endure Snape, are they not?"

McGonagall was clearly not amused, so Septima decided to get serious for once in her lifetime.

"Soon the whole castle will know about him, Minerva. Who knows if one of the… how shall I put this, less insightful students won't write home about all of this."

McGonagall stopped for a second, before resuming climbing the stairs. The other professor picked up the pace.

"You won't be able to keep that secret."

"I will do what I can," said Minerva firmly. "What I will not have is the Ministry hovering behind me."

"This I can agree with…" Septima winced ever so slightly. "And what about Malfoy?"

"How should I know?"

"Minerva, please."

They stopped in the middle of the narrow staircase that lead to the hall near the viaduct. Septima looked at the Headmistress, trying to read her, but couldn't. As always, Minerva remained an enigma.

"If I'm going to help you, you can't keep such important details from me."

"Those aren't important details."

"Then why did you reach out to him, of all people?"

"How do you even know if I did?"

Septima smirked, showing her advantage in a way that Minerva honestly hated. Despite their long-time friendship, she knew she would never be able to like the most Slytherin parts of Septima's personality.

"Oh, all right," she said and then looked around. "But not here."

"God, you're acting as if we were in a movie."

Professor McGonagall pointed towards some second-year Ravenclaws, which greeted them with respectful nods as soon as they saw that the two teachers were looking. Then the students proceeded to pretend they were admiring a particularly large portrait of a sleeping wizard. They managed to wake him up, though, upon which he started to cuss and yell at them in a long-dead dialect of the seventeenth-century Portuguese province. However, it sounded threatening enough to scare the intruders away.

When the scared Ravenclaws ran past Minerva, she didn't even have the energy to scold them. She climbed the moving staircase and Septima followed silently. Only after the door to the Headmistress' office closed shut behind them, did Minerva feel slightly more at ease. She fell into her favourite armchair and looked at the empty canvas of the portrait of Severus Snape.

"It's just so incredibly complicated…"

"I think it's only incredible," said Septima, with a flick of her wand summoning two teacups and Minerva's favourite teapot.

She busied herself with making tea, which after a long day full of abstract numbers and portals to the outer space, was definitely comforting. The Headmistress, however, looked as if she still wasn't quite ready to start talking. Once she did, Septima was careful not to interrupt:

"I still don't know what really happened. A couple of hours ago everything seemed perfectly normal and then… The whole castle started to tremble. I thought we were all going to blow up!" She graciously accepted a cup of tea and a biscuit. "Then, one of my Gryffindors came in, basically in tears. She started to ramble about… about somebody coming through the wall and terrorising poor Joan. Naturally, I thought it was nonsense and that somebody's potion must have caused some sort of reaction… The girl looked utterly Confounded. Only after I went to the dungeons, I saw…

"Snape."

"Yes." Minerva looked her straight in the eye. "I don't know how, I don't know why, but it really was him."

"And you're certain about this?"

Having remembered the book throwing and that sarcastic voice, Minerva knew there was no doubt about it.

"Oh, yes. I'm certain."

"So why Malfoy?"

"Malfoy?"

"Why did you take him to Malfoy?"

"Well, he couldn't stay here, now could he?"

"Why, yes but… Malfoy?" Septima crossed her legs. "I don't know, even after all this time, I still don't trust him one little bit."

"Draco is not his father," said Minerva sternly. "Of that, I can assure you."

"I'm still not convinced. That whole business of his is so Lucius…"

"These are just stereotypes."

"Oh, I don't think that every lawyer is a vampire without a shred of empathy…"

"But?"

"But nothing, that's actually all I think about lawyers."

McGonagall leaned back into the armchair, which seemed to make Septima even surer of herself:

"Be frank, you can't really like him."

"It's hard to talk about likes and dislikes, when you're talking about someone whom you have actually seen grow up."

"And if the said person has managed to become a Death Eater in the process…?"

"Oh, stop it. Sometimes I'm really sick of your oversimplifying things."

"Well, I do have to deal with numbers and symbols on a daily basis, don't judge me for wanting to have a good laugh."

"At someone's expense, as usual? This is not a very appropriate subject for jokes, Septima. And Draco is certainly not a bad person. I couldn't have trusted a person whom I didn't really deem–"

"Oh, all right! All right." Vector raised her arms defensively, suddenly wishing for something stronger in her teacup.

They have completely changed the subject and she didn't really want to get into the one they were revolving around. Minerva's last year's infamous divorce almost ended with her nervous breakdown. Merlin knew that she didn't deserve to be belittled by some old jerk. According to Septima, though she would never admit that aloud, one could never, not in a million years, accuse Malfoy of being an incompetent lawyer. In court, he almost tore the old bastard to shreds. He threw at him every possible paragraph, every article and every past case. And even though the archaic, patriarchal Wizarding law was never particularly in favour of women, Minerva got most of the money, she got her house back and left quietly, just as she wanted, with her dignity almost intact.

"A divorce is not a tragedy, Minerva. A loveless relationship is."

"Well, love fades." The Headmistress looked at the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, who for the past couple of minutes was diligently pretending to be fast asleep. "One just has to accept that…"

Septima raised an eyebrow at that.

"Rot and nonsense." She smirked.

McGonagall looked at her seriously, upon which the other professor smiled cheekily.

"The greatest works of world's literature are not about divorces, Septima."

"You can't honestly tell me you believe in poetry. Love? Please." She leaned back into her chair. "I'd rather die of divorce than of a broken heart. Sounds cheaper."

"Say, does our favourite counsel have a card?" asked Septima.

"Why?" Minerva pursed her lips.

"Ah, you know. Personal archives and such…"


	3. Chapter 3

Silas Crowley's utterly cluttered office was kind of a legend in the Financial Department. Stuffed birds of prey, dark wallpapers and the overwhelming ambience, which could have made Dracula feel very much at home, earned Crowley the reputation far nastier than his character ever could. Some say that he never left his office, not even to go home to sleep. Others, that among the most formidable stashes and piles of documents, Crowley hid the bodies of his ex's and the maps to the lost Ancient Library of Alexandria.

One way or the other, Crowley was a terrible hoarder indeed, and the fact that he never drew back the curtains was not helping his paleness one little bit. It is safe to say that the accountants were not particularly fond of being summoned to their boss' office. Even the guests, upon seeing the… charming interior, would suddenly remember they left the stove on. Draco Malfoy, for example, couldn't wait to leave the dire room, though it came as no surprise that his travel companion felt there rather comfortable – probably because he fit the design.

"Malfoy?"

As soon as he had smelled the familiar cologne, Silas tore himself away from invoices he was currently signing. For a person who was spending most of his time in darkness and confinement, Silas had a remarkably sensitive smell.

"An…" Here Silas swore under his breath, because despite the fact he was sitting with the lights on at four in the afternoon, he immediately recognised that figure, the terrifying eyes… Not to mention that unfortunate nose.

"Yeah, yeah." Draco threw his leather gloves on the cluttered desk and plopped into a chair. "Oh my, he's dead, no he's not, mighty Merlin, blah, blah… Let's talk business, shall we?" He unbuttoned his designer coat and smirked. "I came to collect that favour you owe me, Crowley."

"A favoor?" Silas sneered viciously and calmly put the invoices into an overfilled desk drawer.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that two Slytherins could never make a deal the "easy way". None of them would want to lose the upper hand and so the bargaining tended to prolong impossibly. Snape considered this and decided to busy himself in the meantime. He looked around with the usual scowl, though less pronounced than before – which in itself should be considered an abnormality in the structure of the Universe.

"Ye cannae be serioos." Silas pulled his rectangle-shaped reading glasses down his nose.

He watched Severus cautiously, as if doubting his own sanity.

"Hoo did thes e'en happen?" Crowley pointed at the Potions Master. "Yoo've bin keepin' heem in yer bucky cellar fur th' pest ten years, ur somethin?"

"Yes, making sure he ages properly." Draco rolled his eyes heavenwards. "I would never let him into my wine cellar, don't be ridiculous."

Snape glared at Draco, but said nothing.

"Sae it is ye?" Silas looked like he wanted to approach Snape, but then decided not to.

"It's not as if I went for a cross-country stroll and found myself a doppelgänger." From the inner pocket of his grey jacket, Draco took out an engraved silver cigarette case.

"Mebbe ye werenae walkin." Crowley stopped sneering and came back to his usual indifferent face expression. "Ah coods believe th' version wi' a mercedes an' a chauffeur, tho."

"Enough." Snape finally decided to cut in so he stopped his studious admiring of the antique map of the 1888 London.

Silas winced when he heard his voice. Even if he had his doubts before, now he was rid of them completely. Maybe someone could play the part of Severus Snape, quite believably too, but that voice… that vicious, unpleasant tone was impossible to fake.

"Indeed. _Just when you thought I was gone… They pull me back in."_ Snape slowly approached the desk and bared his nicotine-stained teeth in a creepy sneer. "Hello again, Crowley. Now show me the portal."

"Whit!"

"I thought we agreed that _I_ will do the talking," said Draco impatiently and lit a cigarette.

"Alas, we do not have all day," growled Snape, while Silas was still contemplating the possibility of having to take his chances against the most powerful Legilimens after the Dark Lord.

"Ah dunnae kinn whit–"

Apparently Silas' chances didn't look too great. Severus pressed his palms against the desk and lowered his head, so that he could look Crowley in the eye.

"My opinion of your intelligence is bad enough, I assure you. However… it seems you have decided to play on my nerves, too, and I'm simply wondering if that's very… wise, Silas."

Draco murmured something about the played out Hufflepuffs-scaring techniques. He was angry with himself. He should have known that he was getting himself into quite a mess. As soon as the wheels in that greasy head started turning, and the portal theory emerged from that sick, twisted brain of his… Draco should have pushed him out the door, and most certainly NOT let Severus involve him in his supernatural bogus. Malfoy had enough on his plate as it was. Next time he should think things through and not let himself get tempted with fame and the perspective of outtalking someone.

"So." Draco hid the cigarette bud in his fist. Once he opened it, the bud was gone. "Uncle Severus came to visit…"

"Ho ye, _Uncle Severus?"_ Silas sneered viciously, while Severus shot daggers at his godson.

"Yes," said Draco, completely and perfectly composed. "To make long story short, he thought he could use that silly portal of yours, let's not get into too many boring details, blah, blah, blah… And I, being the kind gentleman that I am, I thought I would collect the favour that you still very much owe me."

"Is 'at wa ye decided tae play frock up, Snape?" Crowley put one leg on the desk, while sneering viciously at the Muggle shirt and pants that Severus was currently sporting. Though they didn't look that bad on him, they certainly didn't fit him. "Ah, ye charmer. Aam tooched."

" _Don't_ test me, Crowley."

"See? I told you people notice such things," said Draco. "I told you: one doesn't talk business in a bathrobe."

"I would make quite the deals in yours, that's for sure" snapped Severus.

Unfortunately, putting three former Slytherins in one room also usually results in nobody getting what they initially came for.

"Nae offence Snape, but ye pure shoods hae stayed in 'at hole ye crawled oot of."

Crowley suddenly regained his composure. He buttoned up his black jacket, which Draco immediately thought to be way too expensive and clean, at least for someone like Crowley.

"Ah dunno anythin' abit onie bludy portals, an' e'en if Ah did, Ah certainly woods nae teel ye." Silas sneered again, with way too much satisfaction for Severus' taste. "Especially since yoo're a wanted guy noo, Snape."

"What is he going on about?" Severus turned to Draco, who just rolled his eyes and took the gloves from the desk.

"Details," he replied.

"Efter th' war they thooght ye waur deid, but since Potter was wrang an ye apparently arenae..."

"Potter!" scowled Snape. "What does he have to do with anything?"

"Everythin," Crowley assured him, bearing his uneven teeth in a smile that emphasized the gauntness of his face. "Huvnae ye heard? Someain died an' made Potter king ay th' wizardin warld."

Severus glared at Draco, which he thoroughly ignored, and instead saluted Crowley mockingly. Silas pointed them to the door, leaving them no doubt that he wants nothing more but for them to leave.

"Draco, 'ome by onytime. Snape… dornt forgit tae send me a card frae Azkaban."

The Potions Master was now basically fuming with loathing.

"Speaking of which, Crowley, I would very much like to hear what the Wizengamot had to say about your stay there."

Silas suddenly showed great interest in his fingernails.

"Ah believe ye heard abit thes a body nifty speel called _Imperio?_ "

As soon as Severus slammed the door behind him, came the impending regret that he had no robes that could billow behind him in a truly evil fashion.

"Fucking prick."

"Now, now. You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"Oh, do finally shut up." Severus stopped marching and glared at Draco. "If I'm going down, Crowley sure as hell is going down with me. Each and every one of those assholes will!"

They both grew silent after that, and as soon as Draco was beginning to enjoy it, Severus spoke again:

"I cannot believe that for ten years you haven't so much as lifted a finger to restore my reputation."

"Well, it just so happens that I don't care what you think."

Draco shuddered at the sheer thought of bureaucracy that he experienced, while trying to so much as scratch the surface of the case DE079011/25, otherwise known as "Wizengamot v. Severus Snape". "His good name", _puh-lease!_

"To be entirely truthful, I didn't have to restore anything," Draco said, when they turned another corner and left the Financial Department.

They were now crossing an empty corridor and walking towards the elevators.

"Meaning?"

"Someone took care of this for me. Quite skillfully, I might add." Here Draco grew silent. "Of course I will never admit that, were we ever to touch upon the subject again, understood? Right… So trust me. Your… 'reputation' was left in unexpectedly capable hands."

Once Draco pushed the elevator button, and Severus was opening his mouth to ask the key question, somebody behind them yelled:

"Freeze!"

Draco growled, but acted on his instincts and swiftly turned around. Right in front of them stood The Boy Who Lived, in the flesh – though Severus was very surprised just how much Potter has grown since he last saw him. Behind Potter, in two rows, stood quite an impressive Auror assembly, with their wands up and ready. Silas must have given them away. Draco, despite his initial shock, he was now showing rage in its pure form.

While Malfoy was wondering where to begin his speech on the obvious insult that was this situation, the Potions Master quietly admitted that this unusual display of power was very flattering. Potter must have though he would never get him alive – and he was absolutely right. Malfoy, as was evident, did not share Snape's enthusiasm:

"You had to, Potter," he hissed.

After considering the fact that the Wonderboy had brought his whole court with him, and probably won't let them both go anytime soon, Draco patted his pockets impatiently, looking for cigarettes.

"You just couldn't deny yourself the epic entrance, could you? No, no, you couldn't, of course not – you fucking _drama queen!"_

Snape instinctively straightened himself up. Draco raised his eyebrows, embodying his true lawyer alter ego – "Yes, I would love to listen about all your failures and then bill you for the service." Harry, however, was only looking at the man he had thought he would never see again. When Severus glared at the Aurors, every single one of them in the official purple robes, he realized that they wouldn't be a problem – had he only have his wand. Knowing his luck, Potter probably had snatched it from the Shrieking Shack and locked it in the Tower.

Severus took a step towards the Aurors and all of them took a step back. Nobody wanted to attack him. Snape, seeing that he was still very much intimidating, sneered with satisfaction. He would've played the cat and mouse even longer, but Harry finally spoke:

"Severus, please."

"What is it, Potter?"

Snape took one more step and looked at the Aurors with his special stare reserved for the lowest forms of life and especially irritating Gryffindors.

"You always were a reasonable man…" Harry was not going to let Snape play with him, though the same could not be said about his "army".

"I wouldn't say that, Potter."

"Oh no, you don't! Don't you 'reasonable man' him, Potter!"

Draco looked like a very angry cat, irritated at Snape's and Harry's obvious territorial pissing.

"How dare you–"

"We have an arrest warrant, Draco."

"Oh, isn't that convenient?" Malfoy, completely ignoring the Aurors, their wands and the Wizengamot representative, loosened his tie and shoved Snape to the side. He went after Harry, holding a cigarette in front of him like a weapon of some sort.

"I would just love to hear your so called 'charges' against my client!" Draco hissed, standing now so close to Harry that his breath fogged over Potter's glasses.

The youngest boss of an Auror Division in history was not about to show any emotions. He just smiled politely, which completely enraged Malfoy.

"I don't remember hiring you," said Snape.

"Stay out of this!"

"Do you really want to hear all the charges?" asked Harry, calm as millpond.

"If there are any, which I fucking doubt," growled Malfoy, expecting his ex-nemesis to yield.

Potter sighed and nodded towards the Wizengamot representative. The man cleared his throat, took a breath and unrolled the parchment he was holding. The formidable-sized scroll unrolled up to the floor.

"Oh." Malfoy suddenly lost his grip. "Well, if you wanna put it that way…"

* * *

Septima Vector had believed in great many things during her lifetime. At first it were monsters under the bed, then Daddy Dearest's promises, then love, loyalty, obedience, the "forever and ever" and the brief fascination with Eastern Zen philosophy. Somehow everything ended and blurred away, leaving only the fiery attraction towards arithmancy, algebra, astronomy… Basically – everything that could be measured, weighed and seen. Only this gave her comfort. There were times when she wondered about her past, though it was always subconscious. Eventually, she would always refocus on the "here" and "now". Septima was no coward. She was just smart enough to know that some thoughts were not meant to be visited.

Now the cold and calculated logic that's been accompanying her throughout her whole adult existence, was somehow pushed aside. In secret from Minerva, Septima broke the spells cast on the locked Potions classroom and once again stood right in front of the mysterious portal. Countless possibilities rushed through her head as she watched the light beaming from the intergalactic mist. The seething and spurting spacetime were almost soothing.

Septima knew that if she were to venture to the unknown, unspeakable things could happen to her. Portals were unpredictable and downright mythical occurrences and this one, to the best of her knowledge, was the first to appear on Earth since the ancient times. What would happen with her if she were to cross it? Accidental splinching during an unlicensed apparition would probably seem like a field day in comparison. On the other hand… What else is out there for her? Will she ever have another chance like this?

Septima carefully outstretched her hand and touched the glistening mist coming from the portal. The gleaming spacetime spurred and swirled towards Septima, exploding in turn with orange and indigo glow. Suddenly it ceased moving and then blasted again, this time with hundreds of thousands of time particles. She giggled and without hesitation jumped headfirst into the portal.

* * *

Harry Potter's private office was quite the opposite of the grim rathole that Silas Crowley has chosen to reside in. Draco threw his coat on the armchair that stood against the wall, and then sat down first. Severus chose to stay put. He was feeling more than suspicious. Maybe it was the clinically clean walls or the number and variety of the friends and family pictures, but… Wait. Was that a framed _Daily Prophet_ clipping about Ginny Weasley? Severus narrowed his eyes and took a step closer. Really, Potter, a schoolboy crush, what a cliché…

"Severus." Harry gestured towards an empty chair, which Severus thoroughly ignored, just as he was trying not to grind his teeth every time Potter has so cheekily called him by his first name. The nerve on that brat!

"So. You have no doubt that it's him?" asked Draco, crossing his legs and toying with a still unlit cigarette. "No second-guessing, no _Finite Incantatem_ for any possibility of Glamour…?"

"Believe me, in this line of work, doubt only slows you down." Harry smiled in the same patient way as before.

Minute after minute, Malfoy was beginning to grow tired of him. After the war he had agreed to bury the hatchet and tolerate the Wonderboy as best as he could – though in very small dosages, thank you very much. He could simply feel that after today, he will need some heavy antidotes.

"So, Potter." Severus finally spoke. Harry was very surprised at how much this voice could still make him cringe inside.

Unexpectedly, the old, gloomy Potions classroom and the dungeons reappeared under his eyelids, along with the scathing comments and wry smirks. Harry straightened up his back, at which Snape sneered sardonically.

"How about that arrest warrant, Potter? What am I still doing here?"

Harry grew silent and then did something that surprised even Draco – he smirked, in a way worthy of even the vilest of Slytherins. Then Harry sat down and opened his desk drawer, from which he took out a bottle of Firewhisky. When he conjured three glasses, even Severus couldn't think of any appropriate thing to say.

"I fabricated it," said the Auror. "You can't possibly think that after years spent on running around the Supreme Wizarding Court, I'd just hand you over to the Dementors."

When Harry poured the alcohol, Snape quietly admitted he was almost impressed. He accepted the drink hesitantly, while Malfoy immediately downed his whisky and lit the cigarette he was still holding.

"Potter. There will come a time when you are going to give me a heart attack," Draco said.

"With your habits, you're gonna get one anyway."

Snape stopped glaring at the glass and finally sat down next to his godson. He then noticed a magical photograph that stood on Harry's desk. In the picture, two boys waved and grinned, then shoved one another as soon as Harry looked elsewhere.

"Well, well, Potter." Snape drank his whisky, trying to cover up the fact that he sounded even more embittered than he had originally planned. "They are yours, I presume?"

Harry nodded and smiled proudly.

"You don't want to tell him about the names you've chosen?" Draco looked at Harry with the usual contempt.

For the first time that day, Snape noticed any signs of uneasiness in Harry. Even though he had planned on growling something about him not caring about Potter's offspring, he noticed Draco's expression and was now slightly curious.

"Uhm, the eldest after my father and," murmured Harry, downing his drink. "And… And the younger after you, actually."

To Malfoy's utter glee, Severus almost choked on his whisky. It took him a while to regain composure. The face he made at Harry afterwards was utterly amusing.

"Have you completely lost your mind, Potter?!" Snape roared. "You named your child 'Severus'?!"

"Wow." Draco smirked and poured himself more whisky, now considering the day not entirely wasted. "This is going to be good."

"I didn't realize I was committing a felony," said Harry, now glaring at Draco. "Honoring the fallen hero who had done so much for the ca–"

"No, of course! As per usual, you didn't _think_ ," spat out Severus. "We despised each other for almost a decade!"

"Quite irrationally."

"That is not for you to decide!"

"Yes, you're completely right, Severus, your crush on my mum _is_ a blatant justification for your years of bullying her only orphaned child."

Smiling like someone who just wants to watch the world burn, Draco downed his drink and poured himself some more, looking at Severus and then at Harry, as if he was watching an insane Ping-Pong match.

"I… Who even gave you permission to call me by my first name!"

"Please!" barked back Harry, now emanating with self-confidence that Severus had never seen before. "I'm almost thirty years old and you'd still like me to call you 'Sir'? After all I've done for you, you at least owe me 'Severus'."

"Since you took my name anyway and then decided to pass it on to somebody else, then _who am I_ to take away your chance for another fifteen minutes of fame!"

The Potions Master got up from his chair so forcefully that it fell to the floor. Malfoy, utterly thrilled with the situation, had decided to add insult to injury and said:

"Not to mention, Sev, that with your whole intergalactic voyage and all, we're almost the same age."

"That's absurd!" growled 'Sev'. "But I am curious just how many diamonds did you have to buy for the missus, Potter," he hissed viciously, his eyes glistening evilly.

"Sorry?"

"Apology most certainly _not_ accepted."

"That's not what I meant. What diamonds?"

Snape raised an eyebrow.

"Really, Potter, it's quite elementary. No entirely sane wife would agree to such blatant child abuse."

"Ex-wife," said Draco.

Harry gave him a frosty look.

"Why, thank you for the errata, Draco."

"But you're more than welcome."

"I've always wanted to talk to Snape about my love life."

"Then look, there's your chance!"

"Malfoy?"

"Potter?"

"Shut the fuck up, will you?"

"Both of you shut up!" Snape sat down again, though only because he needed more alcohol. Surprisingly, Potter's whisky wasn't half bad – it was actually more than decent. When did Potter acquire a good taste?

"Let me guess, Potter," said Snape, momentarily regaining composure and sneering like the nasty person he was. "You constantly worked overtime, have been getting five promotions yearly, and then the poor, mistreated woman threw herself into another man's arms and broke your tiny heart?"

Harry was beginning to amaze him with this inner peace. After previous disastrous exchange, Snape was half-expecting Potter to jump at his throat, like he used to. Meanwhile, the Auror just shook his head and sat down. He outstretched his long, skinny legs, behaving as if he was having drinks with his buddies and not two former Death Eaters whom he, frankly, thoroughly despised. The feeling was mutual, by the way.

"But tell him, Potter. Don't be so modest." Draco raised his glass, as if he was making a toast.

Harry rolled his eyes, trying to ignore him, but in the end, he finally decided that he doesn't even care anymore.

"Actually" he cleared his throat "it was my 'other man'. And her 'tiny heart'."

Draco turned towards Snape, grinning as broadly as his slim jaw would allow him. The Potions Master, for the second time that day, was seriously considering a lapse into alcohol addiction. It seemed that only the good, ol' Firewhisky could save him from that flying circus.

If Severus was a believer, a thought that things couldn't get much worse from here would not even cross his mind – in fear of tempting the fates, of course. However, to his own misfortune, Severus Snape was an ardent atheist.


	4. Chapter 4

"Out of the question!"

Angry as a bag of wasps, Severus has been pacing around the office for the past few minutes. The sun was slowly setting and a bright, orange light that came through the window cast long shadows on the walls – which made Snape's look particularly like Nosferatu's.

"Seve–"

Harry stopped himself immediately, upon seeing the former professor's expression.

"Ahem."

"Indeed, Potter."

"Mr Snape…?" tried Harry.

"Mr Potter." Severus nodded slightly, with an unexpected gallantry.

He put his empty whisky glass on the desk. The last ice cube was still slowly melting inside of it. Harry, feeling tipsy, decided not to drink anymore. Draco, on the other hand, was now shamelessly snoring in the armchair by the wall, his one leg slinging over the armrest. Sometime ago Malfoy had decided the discussion between the other two wizards was obviously beneath him. Harry sometimes envied Draco the carefreeness. He decided, however, to refocus on the matters at hand:

"They will not let you leave," Harry said, trying to reason with Snape.

"Will they be able to stop me?"

A heavy silence fell, disturbed only by Malfoy's silent snore.

"All right – and how the hell are you planning to get out of here without your wand?"

 _Quid pro quo, Potter._

Harry realised he was witnessing the impossible. The Potions Master was not only leaning on his pristine wall with a nonchalance that nobody in their right mind would ever expect of him, but he was also smiling. Quite cheekily, at that.

"What do you know about my wand?" he asked softly, his gaze menacing and piercing.

Just in case, Potter used occlumency, though deep down inside he knew that no matter how many trainings and Auror exams he may had taken, he would never outdo a natural Legilimens – especially one that had been jerking around Voldemort for years.

"It was destroyed," he finally said, forcing himself not to turn his gaze or show any weakness. This seemed to amuse Snape even further.

"Destroyed?"

"Burnt."

The Potions Master stepped away from the wall and, suddenly completely serious, sat back down. The chair squeaked and Harry felt that his pulse was slowly coming back to normal. He was just about to say something, but he changed his mind at the last minute. There was nothing else left to say.

"I will not register in any office," Snape repeated the argument from a few minutes ago.

Harry sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"You died."

"Nonsense."

"Bloody hell, you're officially dead!"

"So should I register as a zombie?"

"An undead," said Harry, trying to remain calm. "Believe me, it's the only way."

"You posses, I presume, some sort of expertise in the matter?" snarled Severus.

What he really meant was something along the lines of "I know perfectly well that you hide the fact of being a very privileged amateur." As it happens, Harry indeed had some sort of first-hand experience in a similar situation, however he had no business in letting Snape know about it.

"You… You are the only known wizard in history who's managed to get back from the dead so no, forgive me when I say that I don't actually have any understanding of–"

"What about Jesus, Potter? Let's not forget my favourite one! On the other hand, how are we supposed to know that Sev is not Dracula's distant relative? Or a phoenix?"

Draco, obviously awaken by the banter, was now smirking at them from the armchair, while Snape decided not to comment on the obvious insult.

"And where, pray tell, would you have me register, Potter?" Severus broke the silence and let out a heavy gasp of a man who was beginning to grow tired of his recently regained existence.

Harry was, quite frankly, stunned. It only had taken him the whole afternoon, but Snape seemed to have finally given up.

"Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures?"

"Salazar, have mercy! I'm not a centaur. Nor a ghost!"

"I'd recommend hitting the Magical Accidents and Catastrophes," Draco suggested sweetly.

If he put a little more effort in it, Snape's deadly glare could kill.

* * *

Some houses have a special kind of memory. No matter how many families live in them, no matter how many layers of paint they put or how much of the old furniture they get rid of, the bricks, the attic, the basement and the creaky floorboards will remember. Even if the new owner of Malfoy Manor were to cast unimaginable amounts of protective spells on the residence, the original magic in every brick would have no intention to obey. Yes, it bore the process and the change with dignity, but for hundreds of years it had its own ideas about the desired and the unwanted guests. The man standing on the threshold must have been the first one, because the door opened for him even before he got a chance to reach for the handle. He stepped inside and with one overdone gesture slammed the heavy door back shut.

"What a mess."

He looked around sceptically and flicked an imaginary speck from the right sleeve. Elegant, though worn out shoes clacked on the marble floor, bouncing a loud echo throughout the hall. When the man reached the stairs, he stopped in front of a huge mirror in an ornamental frame. He threw back his long, blond hair and smiled wickedly to his own reflection.

"I'm back, baby."

The reflection crossed its arms and looked its real counterpart up and down.

"From the dead?"

"Don't be insolent."

Before the reflection disappeared, it sneered and muttered:

"You know, honey, I'd rather stay in Azkaban than prance around in rags from the previous decade."

* * *

Unbearable heat flew into the office through the windows, which were barely cracked open and couldn't under any circumstances be opened wider. The older wizards and witches were dead-scared of the highly fatal case of what was commonly known as "the cold", mind you.

Magically enlarged room, extending to Merlin knew how many feet in length and width, seemed endless. The buzz of rowdy supplicants resembled that of a hornet's nest. Draco, who himself couldn't understand why on earth he had agreed to help Severus in the first place, toyed with the thought of pleading temporal insanity. He sincerely regretted his decision. He was leaning on the empty snack machine and nervously tugged on his tie – though he'd never roll his sleeves. Hot as it might have been, Egyptian cotton with silk was a bitch to iron.

"How much longer?" he growled, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

"I don't know." Potter glanced dubiously at the ticket that Snape was holding.

Snape was the only one out of the three of them who hadn't so much as broken a sweat. Despite being dressed in black from head to toe, he didn't seem to be bothered by the heat at all.

Harry, who was theoretically supposed to be useful, had to admit that in that very moment, he was the complete opposite. Yes, sometimes the wizards passing him by nodded their heads or shook his hand, then there were those who did not seem to recognize him at all, but that is where his role actually ended. The Department Of Magical Migration And Otherworldly Displacement, to which they were redirected from two different offices of the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, seemed to have been entirely sovereign from the rest of the Ministry of Magic.

Queues outstretched for several yards, some waiting in them looked as if they had been here for ages. Draco tried not to stare too much, for fear of being recognized, of course, but every now and then he'd catch himself looking at some phenomena he just couldn't tear his eyes from. For example, the obese woman sitting in the corner, swathed in rags and with her face fully veiled, fascinated him completely – and irritated him at the same time. Mostly because her kids were running around, shouting out nonsense in a foreign language. When finally some wizard decided to scold them, an inhuman hissing erupted from underneath the rags. Draco quickly turned his head the other way, trying to focus on the wall. This seemed to be a lot safer to occupy himself with.

"This queue is not moving forward," growled Snape in the end, after being silent for the past hour.

Alcohol slowly left his body and what he was left with was a migraine, only fuelled by the noise and the heat.

"Actually, I've been meaning to ask you," said Harry. "Why are there runes on your ticket?"

Instead of answering, Snape pointed towards one of the windows, behind which sat a scruffy-looking, balding man with ghastly red eyes.

"Vampires, Potter."

"Sorry, what?"

Severus gave him the special disapproving look number ten.

"I suppose it's easier for them this way. Documentation-wise."

Harry still didn't quite get it, so Snape rolled his eyes and muttered something about wrong Aurors on the wrong positions.

"Potter, I couldn't possibly count how many people or creatures are actually in this office, but I guess it's more than a lot. Muggle digits are able to accommodate a fairly unlimited amount, however… Runes, as you know, are magical and properly infinite in a much more obvious way," he concluded the lecture, while Draco, still looking for a place to sit, snorted cynically.

Even though Severus swore how much he hated his past career in education, he never passed up a teaching opportunity.

"Vampires?" repeated Harry, still in disbelief.

"Are you species-prejudiced, Potter?" Malfoy sneered unpleasantly.

"Vampires!"

"I'm sure they're just as good employees as everybody else, Potter," said Snape.

"Not to mention they don't need any bathroom breaks," Draco added.

They spent what was left of the afternoon and the whole evening at the Department, where people shouted in every possible language known to mankind and… other. In the end, they managed to find three seats, from which they could comfortably observe human and inhuman tragedies, visa refusals or international deportations assisted by armed Aurors. Harry could have sworn that somewhere around the Division of Appeals and Customs he caught a glimpse of Mundungus Fletcher. On the other hand, it might have been hallucinations from hunger. Draco had dozed off, his head resting on Harry's shoulder, when Snape's turn finally came. As for Harry, he's been motionless for the past two hours and continued to stare blankly at the ceiling. A thought flashed through Severus' mind, that the uncharacteristic silence between those two is something he could easily get used to.

"Good evening." Severus walked over to the window behind which the balding vampire was sitting.

Instead of answering, the vampire gave him an unpleasant look and slammed the metal shutter, to which a sheet of paper had been taped. It read: "Break". Snape looked around with a slight panic and with an impossible reflex of someone used to potions crises, he hastily ran towards the next available window, as if he was running towards a seething cauldron. He completely ignored the hostile murmurs and other supplicants' comments. He rested both palms on the glass and showed the clerk sitting behind it his ticket.

"I have to register," he said.

Extremely skinny vampire with blood-red eyes and sharp nails of the same colour looked at him, visibly bored. She outstretched her bony hand towards him.

"I don't care what he has to. Has he filled out the form?" she screeched.

"Ahem. No?" Snape hissed, feeling his left eyelid spasm nervously.

The clerk rolled her eyes and threw his ticket to the bin. Then, letting him know how painstaking the process was for her, she handed him a worn-out quill and a long, complicated form, written on a poor quality parchment.

"So he takes a seat, yeh, completes it and comes back later, yeh? Next!"

Upon hearing this, Severus Snape, for the first time in his life, felt something that could only be described as a slight heart attack. However, he was trying to suppress it by all means necessary…

"Don't you think for even a split-second that I'm going _anywhere!_ " he roared, not moving for an inch. He was now pure fury and determination.

"I've been waiting here all goddamn day, I'm sweating like a damned rat and my head is going to explode, now believe me when I say this, woman, that I. AM NOT. GOING. ANYWHERE!"

The vampire gave him an impatient look, void of any feelings or emotions.

"Honey. Now you believe me when I say that I've been here longer than I had lived, yeh? You don't know shit. NEXT!"

She beckoned the supplicant behind Snape, however the Potions Master was adamant and he wasn't going to move. He grabbed the counter, as if his life depended on it.

"Listen to me, woman, and stop talking to me in the third person: I'm–"

"What is he still doing here, yeh?" She interrupted him. "I said! He takes a new ticket, he sits down, he thinks a little, might do him good, yeh? NEXT!"

When the shrivelled old man tried to take Snape's place at the window, the Potions Master's reaction was almost hysterical.

"I don't give a shit about what you want!"

He glared at the wizard and since Severus Snape by definition never had to particularly focus on the strength of his evil glares to make them work, the man behind him immediately withdrew.

"Now. I will fill out this bloody form and you're just going to sit and wait until I'm done, am I making myself clear?" he snapped at the vampire, not realising of the blatant mistake he had just committed.

The Potions Master, unaware of the fact that he might have overestimated his abilities of the vampire intimidation, took the quill and began filling out the form, completely ignoring any of the angry booing, shouting or threats of imminent death behind him. Since he had a rather extensive experience in case of the latter, and as it happens it was because of death he had actually found himself in that godforsaken place, writing down the appropriate rubbish went rather smoothly. Snape did not expect, however, that as soon as he finishes writing down the complete account of his life and the afterlife, the angry clerk will have already came up with a way to screw him over. She ran her tongue over her unevenly rouged mouth and sneered with satisfaction. However, as soon as she caught a glimpse on the name on the form, her pale face became a mask of pure terror.

"Impossible!"

She blinked a few times and then looked at Severus, then at the parchment, then again at him.

Upon causing panic in other people, Snape suddenly felt a lot more comfortable, since he was accustomed to such state of affairs. He leaned casually against the counter and his thin lips twisted in the form of something what originally was supposed to be a smile, then turned into a grimace and suddenly ended up as something in between. Meanwhile, the vampire reached between the infinite pile of folders, notes, scraps of paper, notebooks, forms and documents on her desk, and took out a special type of purple parchment, then scribbled a quick message on it. When she finished, the parchment rustled, folded itself into an airplane and immediately flew outside of the clerk's box.

"We're closed!" shrieked the vampire and hung out the card that read: "Customer Support Centre no longer supported." She was just about to run, but Severus was faster. He yanked her wrist through the hole in the window and pulled her so hard that she slammed against it.

"Listen to me, woman, and listen carefully, because my patience has run out over three hours ago and I do not like to repeat myself," he hissed, observing with satisfaction the terror growing in her enormous eyes.

"Either you give me all the necessary documents, or I'll do to you everything you think I can and more, and believe me when I say that no Auror will be able to get here in time and stop me before I'm done with you."

The crowd behind Snape fearfully stepped back behind the yellow line and the vampire tapped her trembling finger on the former Death Eater's form.

"You… You didn't sign it. Sir," she moaned weakly, her voice completely unlike her former tone full of superiority.

Severus slowly looked down at the indicated box.

" _Oh… well,"_ he sneered sarcastically. " _Silly me_."

Having said that, he took the quill and made two sweeping signatures on each side of the document, which he then gave back to her.

"Anything else?" he growled, suggesting that she should think twice before saying something she might later regret.

"N–" she began, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Yes?"

"I can't submit an incomplete file."

There was a tense silence, during which almost the entire line behind Snape held their breaths.

"And why exactly not?" He rested his elbows on the dirty counter, looking straight into the vampire's eyes.

He knew that he could not use Legilimency on her, but he was counting on the fact that she might be unaware of that fact.

"Y– you didn't indicate your species. Sir."

"My species?"

"Y–yes."

"Despite what most think of me, I assure you that I am one hundred per cent human."

The clerk shivered, letting him know how doubtful she was of this.

"And after the transformation? What– who are you?"

Severus seemed to catch her reasoning and looked at the complicated document, browsing through it as if he was browsing a restaurant menu. He finally sighed and let go of her wrist.

"Just give me anything without the word 'zombie' in it," he decided.

When he walked away from the window with a freshly laminated ID card in his palm, the crowd of supplicants parted in front of him like the Red Sea. Nobody dared to look him in the eye. Severus walked through the very middle of the room with his head high and stopped to look at Draco, who was still snoring soundly. Potter, however, was fully awake, now staring at the Potions Master with a mixture of disapproval and fear.

"She tried to message the Aurors," Snape told him.

Harry, with a wry smile, raised his palm, in which he held a crumpled purple parchment. The former Death Eater begrudgingly admitted to himself that it looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

* * *

Draco crossed the threshold of Malfoy Manor in a state of absolute exhaustion. He was still leaning on Severus, who was still grumbling anti-vampire comments under his breath. The man was obviously not over his new identity, though he seemed not to realise that, all in all, he virtually went unscathed from the situation. On the other hand, he might have just been in one of his moods.

As soon as they found themselves in the hall, they noticed the light in the living room. Draco firmly interrupted Snape's discourse, immediately snapped out of his sleepy state and straightened his back.

"Are you expecting guests?" said Snape.

Draco ignored him and went towards the living room, with his wand in front of him. What he found there, he hadn't really expected.

"What are you doing here?" he snarled.

Lucius, stretched across the armchair, waved his glass at Draco, spilling the remaining wine at the carpet.

"Is that how you greet your father after ten long years?" he grumbled unpleasantly.

Severus deliberately hid somewhere in the shadows, watching the situation from afar. Lucius looked like he had been drinking himself stupid for several hours. His hair was thinning. Unshaved cheeks and swollen eyelids showed just how much his health had deteriorated in Azkaban.

"Let's go."

"No."

"Yes. Get up."

Draco took the glass away from his father and wrapped Lucius' arm around his shoulders, leading him staggeringly towards the stairs. Lucius mumbled something under his breath and tried to protest, but in the end he turned out to be quite obedient. Severus immediately noticed that the way Draco handled his drunken father showed quite a lot of experience. He guessed that this couldn't have been the first time.

"Not a word," whispered Draco, before he passed Snape on his way upstairs.

Snape obeyed. He waited downstairs until he heard the distant sound of the door closing, and then turned to the least attended wing of the manor, as quietly as only a double spy could. That day Severus fell asleep when the morning came, just as the sun was about to rise. Racing thoughts nagged him, sleep was fitful and the relentless instincts wouldn't leave him alone, like an internal alarm clock. Snape, not really knowing what was his intuition actually sensing, left his room and roamed around the corridors of the manor for quite some time, until he heard someone talking. Following the sound, he began to wonder if it was the father and the son arguing again. When he approached the mysterious someone close enough to be able to distinguish the words, he saw Lucius, who stood in front of an enormous portrait of Narcissa. Severus took one step closer.

Lucius had one hand placed on the frame and the second on the pale, painted palm of his long-gone wife.

"… and he is exactly as you wanted. If only you could see him now – a lawyer, I swear to God. Serious and all grown up… Our son is all grown up and I missed it all."

Snape thought that the picture must have been painted soon after the wedding – the youngest of the Black sisters looked merely seventeen. Her long blond hair fell cascading at her back; her serious gaze was directed at some point in front of her. Severus couldn't remember ever seeing the Icy Narcissa so natural and peaceful.

"Why didn't I listen?" Malfoy hugged his cheek to the canvas and Severus slowly retreated to the hall, not wanting to interrupt the heart-breaking monologue.

He noticed at once that the portrait was non-magical and will therefore never give any reply. Judging by the desperate expression on Lucius's face, he knew that too.


	5. Chapter 5

Draco Malfoy simply didn't tolerate any disturbances in his personal schedule. Also, nothing and no one was allowed to even half an inch beyond the limit of professional relations, so that his "heartless asshole" façade could be successfully preserved. At least until now.

When he woke up well after nine o'clock, sleepy, stressed, sweaty and not yet fully conscious, for a fraction of a second he was still blissfully ignorant of the yesterday's events. He hoped that perhaps he simply had too much to drink and everything was going to be alright – but then the memories came flooding back: father. Severus. Bloody Potter.

"Slytherin have mercy..."

He swung his legs over the king-sized bed and touched the cold floor with a slight relief. Once he rubbed his eyes and started to recover, he didn't even want to know what time it was. A shower first, coffee second, and then he'll take care of the rest.

That day he opted for a charcoal suit and a black tie. He was still perfecting the double Windsor knot in the hall, while thinking that nothing said "normal" as much as ties. He won't give up so easily. It was far too early for an insane asylum. He will tackle this mess because "chaos" and "Draco Malfoy" do not go together. They do not. He will go to court, maybe first review the strategy with the client, and perhaps even eat lunch at a proper hour... Yes. It all sounded very normal and very comforting, indeed.

"And where do you think you're going?"

Behind Draco's back, ice cubes crinkled against an empty glass, and he froze in mid-step from the front door.

"None of your business," Draco replied automatically, clutching his briefcase and feeling his palms sweat for no apparent reason. It never happened anymore, not since his school days. Upon seeing his son's face expression, Lucius sneered cynically.

"We're out of whisky," he said and waved his glass so vigorously that one of the ice cubes fell to the marble floor and slid towards Draco's shoes.

He looked at his father with obvious disgust and opened the door vigorously.

"My condolences."

Draco Apparated in London in an unbelievably vile mood. To make things worse, England had apparently decided that it still remembers all the characteristics of the season most hated by Draco. There were no clouds in the sky, and the air movement was minimal. Angry and slightly sweaty, Draco marched into his office, barely refraining from casting an opening spell on every single window.

"Good morning, Mr Malfoy!" chirped his far too cheerful secretary, who immediately handed him an armful of owl mail, two subpoenas and four howlers.

"Felicia," he began wearily, accepting her "gifts" with a silent resignation.

"You really ought to hurry, Mr Malfoy, those red buggers are beginning to tremble."

She took his briefcase from his hand and replaced it with a cup of fresh coffee.

"Felicia–"

"This morning Mrs Jordan-Norton-Winston had already Floo-ed two times."

"Is that so? Finally decided on only one surname?"

The witch sent him a scolding look and continued imperturbably:

"I would advise you to take care of that matter right away. Also, a letter from–"

"Felicia, no."

"But–"

"I don't have time for this right now."

"But Mr Malfoy!"

"It is still too early!"

She looked at him disapprovingly and with a wave of her wand she opened the glass door to his personal office, in which hung a huge, magical clock, with four clock hands and constellations, which were shifting hastily around the dial.

"It is ten o'clock," she informed him in a motherly tone. "You should have been in court half an hour ago."

Thus, the more than patient secretary, employed as the fourteenth in a row, has been left with all the documents, the coffee, a coat and the piles of letters. After Malfoy's Disapparition, the howlers began to activate one after the other.

Cases with which Draco dealt with rarely ended up in a Supreme Magical Court, and he could only dream of the Wizengamot trials. According to him, the greatest crime occurring during the hearings in which he participated, was the fact that no one ever let him finish. Sure, he rarely lost anymore, he had enough to get by, but at the same time he couldn't get rid of the annoying feeling that perhaps, after all, this wasn't entirely what life was all about.

"... and, as was already mentioned, the defendant is not only an exemplary witch, but also the mother of three, whose magical education–"

"Very well, counsellor." The judge in formal carmine robes pounded the gavel on the block and gestured towards Draco's client. "The defendant is free to go. What do we have next, Freddie?" He leaned down towards the courtroom deputy, who with a flick of his wand summoned another stack of folders.

"But..." Malfoy looked like he accidentally swallowed a fly. "Your Honour, their education is of an utmost importance–" he tried again, but was soon pushed towards the door by his client, who couldn't wait to get out of the courtroom.

Draco grabbed the wooden bench and pulled his sleeve out of her fingers.

"Let go of me, woman!" he hissed.

"Counsellor," the judge leaned towards Draco and slid his small glasses to the tip of his nose, which he almost never did. His look was piercing and stern.

"You've won the case."

"But Your Honor–"

"... and I would advise you to get out of my courtroom before I change my mind. Next!" He pounded the gavel again, though this time much louder.

Draco looked as if he wanted to add something more, but in the end dutifully gathered his papers and left. He lit a cigarette on the patio, only half listening to his client's thanks. He's just won her a considerable alimony, no wonder she was grateful, but was that what he went to school for? He wanted something more from life, some prestige! Publicity!

He threw the halfway burnt cigarette on the pavement and without any sort of goodbyes Apparated in his office. He barely had the time to recover after the teleportation, when Felicia jumped from behind her desk and attacked him with the afternoon edition of the _Daily Prophet._

"Read!" She almost stuck his face in the newspaper, which the already annoyed Draco didn't take too kindly.

"Damn it, woman! I will get myself another secretary!"

"Office manager," she corrected him sharply. "And don't delude yourself that you will find any takers for the position. Now read!"

 _Until recently presumed dead, the former Death Eater, infamous double spy and the man whose reputation was repeatedly defended by none other than Harry Potter, decided to come out of hiding. Dear Readers, as my anonymous source dutifully reports, last night Severus Snape registered as an undead in the_ _ **Department Of Magical Migration And Otherworldly Displacement. This begs the question: is this why he had been in hiding for almost a decade? Has the Boy Who Lived been helping him all along? And if so, what else is the new head of the Auror Office hiding from the Wizarding community? More on page 36.**_

Draco crumpled the newspaper in his hands and took a deep, calming breath. Felicia handed him another two newspapers, both of them cheap, tattletale tabloids with horoscopes and fabricated ghost stories.

"Those two also wrote some extensive articles about him."

"Fuck!"

"Indeed."

"Bloody Skeeter!" Draco snorted and ruffled his carefully combed hair with his palms.

"Say what you will, compared to her mother she writes rather well..."

But Draco wasn't listening. He was too busy imagining the possible crisis. He threw the _Prophet_ on the floor and burst into his personal office. Felicia followed, waving another newspaper at him.

"One of them names his former student as the source, she put together quite an extensive theory that Snape's been a vampire for years."

Draco growled under his breath and threw his jacket over the back of a chair, loosened his tie and looked around for the can of coffee, in which he kept the Floo powder.

"There is no stopping this now. Whole England is going to know about him," he said, opening and closing the desk drawers.

"What do you mean?"

He gave her a knowing look.

"Oh dear Merlin... So it's all true?" She stared at the floor, cluttered in newspapers. "Draco?"

"Not now," he sighed wearily. "Where is that can?"

"Draco!"

"I said not now!"

"Fine!" She waved her hand dismissively and turned on her heel. "As you wish. But you're gonna have to start talking sooner or later. Who knows if the Aurors won't want to interrogate us? First they ask about Snape's afterlife and then who knows!"

"They suspect he rose from the dead?!"

Felicia whirled back when she realised that Draco sounded more like a deeply kept secret has just been revealed, and not as if she had said something absolutely ridiculous. He was silent for a moment, but then shook it off when he finally found what he was looking for. He dropped a handful of the bright green powder into the fireplace. The flames raged and glowed green.

"Draco?"

"Later."

"What do you mean 'later'! Come back here!"

She tried to run after him, but Draco managed to escape her. He almost fell face first on the carpet in the drawing room, at which Lucius did not even blink. He was sitting in his favourite chair, staring at the sunlight coming through the window. He seemed to be completely out of his head. Judging by the fact that he had managed to empty half the contents of his own secret stash in only one day, Draco truly believed his father's lack of contact with the reality was genuine.

"Where's Snape?" Draco hissed, rising back to the fully vertical position, still not quite recovered after such intense doses of teleportation.

Lucius was silent for a while longer, and then muttered:

"What have you done with your mother's orangery?"

"Nothing." Draco brushed his suit and approached his father in order to wrestle the empty glass from his hand. He put it forcefully at the very top of the showcase containing the ancestral china. "It's just like it used to be."

"It's dead!" roared Malfoy Senior, completely outraged. He turned to face his son, though his gaze was still completely blank.

"Yes," said Draco. "It has been for a very long time. And now tell me where he is!"

"I don't understand how could you let it wither." Lucius stared back at the window. "She loved those flowers..."

Draco slowly clenched his fists, feeling his patience fleeting from him.

"Pull yourself together, old man!" he growled. "My mother never loved anything in her life!"

Draco left the room and for a good couple of minutes called after Snape around the house, before he realised that he and his father were the only ones there. Cursing aloud, he started to think intensely where in hell could Snape be. Unfortunately, he had quite limited knowledge of his godfather's favourite hideouts, besides... maybe Hogwarts' dungeons? There was no other place where the Potions Master could hide, except maybe...

* * *

Draco Apparated for the n-th time that day, realising that he was beginning to feel rather dizzy. Well, he's never really lost consciousness in his life, but who knows, maybe the hundredth time was the charm...? Right. The good thing was that he was probably on the right track, since he saw a familiar, slightly hunched figure in the distance. He congratulated himself on good memory and logical thinking. Perhaps he wasn't ever listening to Snape very attentively, but Draco's ability of character assessment helped him conclude that there were, in fact, only two places on the planet towards which Snape has had any sort of emotional attachment. Judging by his godfather's cold and calculated nature, Draco was actually amazed at the fact. Well, apparently Severus must have had his reasons...

"Spinner's End? Really?"

Snape looked at his godson and threw his cigarette butt on the wet grass. He did not comment on his godson's presence, which Draco found to be a veiled compliment for his deduction abilities. Severus remained silent, and Malfoy started to get cold. He slid his hands into his pockets.

Unlike London, moderate but penetrating coldness swept across Cokeworth. They stood on a hill from which they could see the wetlands and brown, neglected moors that surrounded the town. Behind them, the sleepy streets drowned in the sticky, stifling and impenetrable smog. A huge and threatening chimney of a long unused factory towered over the houses like a grim watchman. Greyish bricks of the abandoned buildings were now covered in dirt and damp moss. Sickly sweet, musty odour of garbage permeated the town. The smell probably had its origin in the ruins of the abandoned factory.

The muddy banks of the river, which crossed Cokeworth exactly in the middle, were covered in litter. From the water came lazy, muffled splashes.

Malfoy shuddered at the thought of growing up in a place like this. It came as no surprise that it had turned Severus funny. The only upside of their current location was the fact that Cokeworth has been long abandoned and nobody was going to see them. Well, maybe some homeless bum.

"I suppose I should have taken a better care of my last will," said Severus, crossing his arms and looking with an unreadable expression at the remaining parts of his former home. The building looked like a hurricane had swept through it, and a Fiendfyre followed right after.

"You're joking? Knowing my luck, you'd have probably named me the executor of that junkyard. Thanks but no thanks."

Draco frisked his pockets, looking for cigarettes, but then remembered he had left them in his coat pocket. Bloody hell, he shouldn't have left in such a hurry. Most importantly, he shouldn't have let himself be bullied by his own assistant!

Severus did not even comment on the apparent impertinence and graciously offered Draco his wrinkled pack of Silk Cuts. Draco didn't bother to ask how did the old bastard even get a hold of it. After all, Snape had no wand and no money.

"You know... Potter came to me, right at the very beginning, when I had just started my practice." Draco inhaled deeply and tried not to shiver. "He tried to hire me to look for your heirs."

Snape looked at him doubtfully.

"Oh, shut up," grumbled Malfoy, immediately guessing what the older man had meant by this look. "He knew that there were none. I don't know why exactly he was so obsessed with you, but he was trying really hard to fix the past, I guess."

"Why are you telling me this?" asked Severus coldly.

Malfoy rolled his eyes and poked Snape forcefully. Snape did not even move and still stood stiffly in the same place.

"Because, as far as I know you're the only guy on this godforsaken planet who got a real second chance, Sev. Don't mess it up."

'Sev' shook his head and started to walk downhill, towards the ruined house. A nearly collapsed, enormous tree that grew nearby was probably the only living thing tying Snape to his past. Perhaps the only living thing, on which Potter couldn't put his sentimental Gryffindor hands.

"Oh, there's something else!" Draco called after him. "Just so you know, you're famous now!"

The Potions Master stopped in mid-stride, narrowing his eyes. He turned on the slippery grass. Unfortunately, he was still wearing the borrowed Muggle clothes, so he couldn't make the right impression with his trademark ominous black robes swipe. As a form of compensation, he glared at Draco evilly, upon which Malfoy nonchalantly threw away the cigarette butt into the muddy puddle. He quickly caught up with Snape.

"You shouldn't have left Malfoy Manor, Snape. Now, thanks to Skeeter, you're on every cover, nay! _Medium Weekly_ and _You & Your After-Life_ want to get an interview with you."

"Skeeter?" Snape wrinkled his big nose with full disgust. "That preposterous cow still writes?"

"Her daughter," said Draco. "She is no less nosy than the Mummy Dearest. Although she's a much better journalist, I have to give her that."

Severus was disinclined to believe that. He glanced one last time towards Spinner's End, and then sighed heavily. Draco tsk-tsked disapprovingly and patted him on the shoulder.

"There's nowhere else to hide. Should've listened to me when you had the chance."

Snape gritted his teeth, grimacing sardonically.

"Listening to other people's orders tends to end rather tragically for me."

Draco put his hands on his hips.

"Yes, well, congratulations then, continue to be stubborn! But now, instead of Voldemort, you're hunted by some crazy half-wits writing horoscopes and the fake mediums! Yes, yes, don't look at me like that. And the Department for the Control of the Non-Wizard Beings and Creatures is going to get you right after they're done with you, not to mention Miriam Skeeter! Quite the advancement, I'd say."

 _"Miriam?"_

"What? It's a decent Jewish name. If her mother wouldn't go crazy with that pathetic platinum blond of hers, you'd spot the similarity right a–... Sev? What the hell are you cackling for?"

Severus Snape chose that precise moment to fall into a fit of hysterical laughter. He laughed loudly and for so long, that Draco was beginning to worry and suspect a stroke – Snape's or his own.

"For the love of Merlin, can somebody finally let me finish a sentence!" He shook Snape's shoulder. "Severus! Calm the hell down!"

He had never, not once, seen his godfather like this. Indeed, a laughing Snape was a phenomenon utterly traumatising to look at. When Severus finally caught his breath, he wiped the tears from the corners of his tired eyes and shook his head.

"Sev?"

"It's... It's just ridiculous!" He chuckled again, at which Malfoy pursed his lips and frowned with a complete disgust. He had never, not in the wildest dreams, thought that Severus Snape could have done something like that.

"Excuse me?"

"Do you hear yourself?" he groaned, still amused. "The mediums? The horoscopes? What 'second chance'? Salazar have mercy, my life is an endless joke!"

"Well, I'm glad that's how you look at it, because in that case what I'm going to say next should make you ecstatic."

* * *

Professor McGonagall felt that she was gradually sinking into the mouth of madness. Two days ago, a portal opened in the dungeons. Not only that, a man came through it – a man, who was dead, has been dead for nearly a decade, according to all logic simply couldn't be alive, he wasn't alive any more, and yet... and yet he very much was. He walked like Snape, talked like Snape, he had his knowledge and character. The only thing he apparently did not have was the common sense to keep quiet and not attract any unnecessary attention!

Now, because of him, Minerva had such a mess to deal with that she didn't even know what issue to address first. And if that wasn't enough, it seemed that the only person who could actually help with closing that hellish portal... simply vanished.

"Peeves claims he had seen her in the dungeons, and Sir Nicholas confirms." She looked at her cup of an already cold tea. "It is scary to even think that... Albus, do you think that the portal could have sucked her in?"

"My dear, portals aren't usually prone to do that."

"But what if?"

"You know that no one could break your locking spells."

"She could."

"But why would she?"

Albus Dumbledore gave her a pondering look from his canvas. Meanwhile, Phineas Nigellus Black shifted uncomfortably in his frame, at the moment almost uncharacteristically silent. Minerva was surprised that he had not yet joined the discussion.

"I cannot close it without her, Albus." McGonangall shook her head. "I cannot. I'm not being falsely modest; the fact is... she is the one who possesses the necessary knowledge about the structure of magic. And I cannot employ yet another teacher! Because I cannot tell anyone that an intergalactic portal has opened at Hogwarts! Parents will take their children from the school, it will be the end of everything we have managed to achieve after the war!"

Dumbledore was still avoiding the question, however that was the moment that the portrait of Brian Gagwilde had chosen to stop the decades of playing chess with the portrait of Professor Aragon:

"My dear Minerva, you seem to be forgetting the fact that aside from Septima there is yet another wizard with the knowledge far exceeding many other. Not only that, now you have gained a, so to say, _free access_ to that knowledge."

The Headmistress gave the former Ravenclaw a doubtful look, and then gazed at the empty frame, in which, until recently, remained her bleak predecessor.

"Well, really. It must be some sort of a mass hysteria. I can't possibly understand why all of a sudden everybody seems to go crazy for that man!"


	6. Chapter 6

This time, to the misfortune of everyone plotting behind his back, Severus Snape was not planning on following anyone's orders. He was slowly accepting the particularity of his new life. However, due to the fact that even the devil himself hadn't been able to change Snape's equally… particular character, the Potions Master, as per usual, was going to approach the crisis on his own terms.

"Sev, don't make me teleport again or I'm gonna barf, I swear."

"Stop acting like a child."

"Oh, look who's talking!"

"Shut up."

With some satisfaction, Severus noticed other pedestrians' anxious glances. He knew that thanks to Skeeter's offspring, half the Wizarding World had learned of his return. The theories about his suspected vampirism or necromantic resurrection were spreading like wildfire. What he wasn't expecting was that the rumours would spread on such a large scale. Though, he had to admit, there were some perks to it.

When some witch abruptly pulled her child to her side and crossed to the other side of Diagon Alley, the Universally-Despised-Overgrown-Bat-From-The-Dungeons sneered in a very self-satisfied manner.

"Bloody hell!" Draco lit a cigarette, looking at Snape impatiently. "You couldn't be more twisted even if you tried."

"I thought you were going to be sick?"

"Miraculously, no. Are we there yet?"

When they finally found themselves in front of Ollivander's shop, Draco threw the cigarette butt into a sump and looked over his shoulder. On the opposite side of the street, two teenage girls halted at the sight of the two former Death Eaters. One whispered something to the other. Malfoy has decided then and there that he had finally had enough. At least for today. All it took was one angry glare and the gossiping girls scrammed as fast as they could.

"In or out?" Draco said to Severus, who raised an eyebrow mockingly.

"I didn't want to interrupt."

Severus crossed the threshold of the shop, and Draco followed. In his head, he was already planning on severing all ties with his godfather – preferably as soon as possible. He was starting to feel his clear influence and didn't like it one bit.

"What the hell?"

 _Ah. Yeah._

With some satisfaction, Draco watched as Snape tried to summon his trademark expression "I don't give a shit", but failed miserably.

"Oh. Well. I've been expecting you, sir."

A lively, shorthaired brunette firmly rested both hands on the glass counter. To Snape's repulsion, she absolutely wasn't Garrick Ollivander, whom he had expected to find there.

"Sev, it's just his daughter, not a Boggart," Draco hissed, then slightly pushed Snape forward.

"Where is Ollivander?" Snape asked brusquely.

"It's a shame that your wand had to be destroyed, Mr Snape," the woman changed the subject, and approached the Potions Master, treading lightly like a dancer.

Having received her education in Beauxbatons, she never knew the trauma that was Severus Snape, so now the dark wizard didn't scare her in the slightest.

"What was it, _Dalbergia melanoxylon?"_ Her smile grew larger.

Without asking for permission, she grabbed Snape's right palm and lifted it up towards the dim light of a dusty chandelier.

"Ah, yes. Completely inflexible and moody…" She repeatedly bent his index and middle finger, frowning in concentration. "But extremely skilled for complex charms. Or so I've heard." She winked at him cheekily. "You see, we no longer import African blackwood. You can't really force it into cooperation."

Snape violently snatched his hand from hers. With a deep sigh, Draco sat down in the unspeakably worn out armchair, nearly eaten away by moths. In its best years, it might have been red.

Malfoy knew Severus' difficult character and with this woman's carefree approach… The wand selection will surely take forever.

"If I could–" the Potions Master hissed indignantly, but she immediately replied:

"No."

"However, I would prefer–"

"Make yourself comfortable, Mr Snape. I think I might have something just for you."

Miss Ollivander tried again with the playful chatter, yet Snape had quite a different view on the matter and was still holding tightly to his convictions:

"Your father–"

"Please be patient."

The woman narrowed her eyes angrily, suddenly completely serious. Obviously, she decided being polite towards him was counterproductive, since he wasn't going to return the favour in the slightest. She held out her hand. The ladder that leaned onto one of the endless shelves speeded towards her. The woman climbed on the highest step and dropped a long, purple and slightly faded box onto the glass counter. She then whistled with her fingers and two other boxes flew towards her from the opposite shelf.

"Well? Take it. Give it a wave!"

Miss Ollivander leaned back a little and then proceeded stepping back to the ground. Snape, with scepticism highly pronounced in his face, reluctantly opened the first box. He took out a lean wand, made out of brown wood. He waved it without any expectations. Few sparks flew out of its tip, but otherwise nothing spectacular happened. Undaunted by the initial failure, Miss Ollivander pushed the other two boxes towards him. Though, when another wand had failed, and another and then countless of others, her initial self-confidence faded considerably.

Draco had showed incredible intuition by taking a convenient position in the armchair, since two hours later Severus was still wandless and fuming. No wand was even vaguely inclined to pick him.

"I really have no idea why, it had never happened before, I assure you…" the woman tried to explain, but the Potions Master wasn't listening.

He was trying different wands at random, trying to force any of them into submission. Some worked, some chose not to, but none of them wanted to obey completely.

"Mr Snape, I assure you that in the entirety of my ancestor's professional experience, no customer had ever walked out of our shop unsatisfied, it–… I–"

"Why should I care! This is a farce!" Completely livid, he threw another wand on the floor. "Are you ready to admit this isn't your calling? Can I finally talk to a professional?"

The new shop owner immediately straightened her back and looked at him proudly, not letting him intimidate her.

"Gladly," she said slowly, giving him a proper death stare. "And while you're at it, Mr Snape, do let me know which had worked better for establishing the contact: a crystal ball or a Ouija board."

The Potions Master showed embarrassment for a whole split of a second, and then left the shop promptly. Still apoplectic, he was not going to let himself show any kind of human reactions, or apologise for that matter. He was, however, a tad angry with himself – he should have guessed that only death would be able stop old Ollivander from selling his wands.

Calm and collected, Draco went after him, tsk-tsking slowly.

"You never cease to amaze, Severus. Has it not occurred to you that your former boss had effectively damaged the poor old man's health and wits?"

Snape growled under his breath, muttering sinister threats and frisking his pockets, looking for cigarettes. He realised he must have lost them while waving his arms around, and pride would not let him return to the shop.

"Let's go."

In search for remaining dignity, he tried giving Draco an intimidating stare, but the younger Slytherin didn't even blink. Reluctantly, Snape grabbed his godson's arm and they Apparated to Hogsmeade. After all, they were already late.

* * *

Minerva McGonagall observed, though with considerable reserve, that Severus had accepted her entire report on Septima Vector's disappearance rather calmly. There were moments when she had just assumed that it was due to the fact he might have not been listening to her at all. Personally, she was growing tired of worrying about the whole mess. She began toying with the idea of following Snape's footsteps and falling into similarly relaxed state. Minerva leaned back in her chair and, while sipping perfectly warm tea, watched the administrative disaster from the front row.

The majority of Hogwarts teaching staff had gathered in her office, and inevitably the meeting had turned into chaos. Everyone was talking or whispering nasty comments about the Potions Master among themselves, to which he remained perfectly indifferent. Actually, the only one relatively composed was Harry Potter.

"Severus?"

"Hm."

"Aren't you going to say something?"

"Yes, Potter. I would prefer to go back to the previous arrangement where you do not address me by my first name." Snape broke away from looking out the window. "Or better yet – you do not address me at all."

Draco rolled his eyes heavenwards and put more sugar in his tea, which he then stirred furiously, bumping the teaspoon against the edges of the cup. He was feeling that this whole "Snape versus the world" extravaganza was beginning to surpass his mental capacity. Really, you'd think that since Wonderboy had defeated Voldemort and was thus permanently excused from attending Hogwarts, strange things would stop happening there. This whole story about the portal in the Ministry, which Ha–… Potter has told them was worrying, at best. Is it possible that it was connected with the one in the dungeons? But, if so, was there a third portal somewhere else? Or a fourth? Slytherin, that's just madness! Really, he should be the one presiding over this meeting – instead of shouting, he was at least asking the right questions.

"Minerva, if I may…"

"Filius, you really needn't ask my permission." The Headmistress took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose, closing her weary eyes. "At this point, any reasonable suggestion should be an improvement."

The tiny wizard shifted in his chair and cleared his throat, which silenced at least some of the other teachers.

"Yes… I… Well, at first… At first let me say how good it is to see you again, Severus. Despite the circumstances of our last–"

Flitwick stopped for a bit and looked around, however nobody was eager to help him with the rest of his insincere reassurances.

"Hmm, mm, yes… After all… After all, we need your help. The situation is, obviously, extremely disturbing."

"Hmmm…" snarled Snape, looking at the other teachers with loathing.

He was aware that the vast majority of the ones present, if not all of them, hated him. Potter's pathetic attempts of clearing his name post-mortem had only made that hatred passive-aggressive. The truth about Severus Snape was, quite frankly, uncomfortable – he was an unpleasant, universally despised bastard who never actively sought to redeem his reputation. Unfortunately for him, the difference between his present and his past was that in the past he was also thought of as an indisputably dangerous bastard. Now, the lack of his wand was drilling into his mind, not allowing him to concentrate on anything else. Slowly, he began to realise that being resurrected was not as bright as some might have imagined it to be.

"Severus?"

Pomona Sprout's voice roused him from his contemplations. She looked at him disapprovingly, which stood in contrast with her generally friendly character. Professor Slughorn, temporarily employed in Joan Goodart's place, looked like he wanted to gently encourage Snape to speak, but it seemed that the gloomy atmosphere in the room had forced him to change his mind and so he said nothing. It seemed that only Harry Potter, oh the irony!, did not express any inclination towards shredding Snape to pieces.

"Severus, would you be able to take care of this right away?" asked Professor McGonagall, glaring at Snape with a mixture of anxiety and irritation.

"Certainly."

His answer was automatic.

Severus wasn't even aware what he had just agreed to, he just… did. Bloody hell! Couldn't he have picked another moment to doze off? He wasn't going to do anybody any favours, however… his pride has been extremely wounded over the past two days. There would be no point in admitting incompetence and letting it be trampled even more so.

"Wait, wait a minute. And why exactly can't Horace do it?" exclaimed Aurora Sinistra, who apparently decided to vent her clear dislike towards Snape.

Then Professor Sprout followed her colleague's notion, and added that if Snape indeed has to brew this potion, she would suggest somebody monitor his work. Upon hearing this, the Potions Master gritted his teeth so loudly that the two witches shuddered. While McGonagall tried to smooth things out, Severus started to think. All right, so it was about a potion. And since that was the case, it was also no wonder that so much fuss was made over him. They all despised him, so it had to be a particularly complicated one… And old Slughorn couldn't do it because… Ah. He should have guessed sooner. Being a canny Slytherin had its perks.

Situation, in which someone would be nice to Snape, was always a situation of an utmost desperation. Severus sank deeper into the chair. If memory serves, there were exactly three potions, which Horace Slughorn was unable to brew. They were all highly experimental, not to mention most delicate and complex in nature. Though, paradoxically, their preparation didn't require much time or any particular phases of the moon. The devil was in the, how to say… instinctive finesse.

If that ridiculous witch – Salazar only knew why she was employed on a position so ambitious as arithmancy – was indeed in trouble… or, more likely, got lost in the Forbidden Forest while looking for blueberries, then they could certainly ask only one potion of him. A very special one, at that. Snape's thin lips twitched involuntarily in a malicious smile, which effectively silenced the arguing witches next to him. For the past ten years they had managed to forget about his monstrous grimaces, and this sudden trip down the memory lane was not a pleasant one.

The Potions Master stood up so abruptly, that Sibyl Trelawney yelped in terror and clutched her shawl. Everyone gathered in the office quieted immediately and watched as Severus walked out without so much as a goodbye.

* * *

The Wizarding youth at Hogwarts, at least in theory miraculously maintained in general ignorance and relative subordination, was fast asleep while the teaching staff reluctantly returned to the uncomfortable topic of Severus Snape.

Harry Potter, by the voice of the majority, was sent to spy on him. So he hurriedly paced the now dark and thus even gloomier dungeons, which were the only part of the castle he was really not fond of. He seriously wondered if disrupting Snape's careful ingredient shredding would turn him into The Boy Who Was Unlikely To Survive The Night.

Since Professor Goodart's absence, Potions classes were held in a different classroom on the fifth floor, which no one was specifically opposed to. After all, the only ones voluntarily residing in the dungeons were, so far, Severus Snape and Slytherin's basilisk.

When Harry finally reached the old classroom, with some hesitation he decided to knock first. When there was no response, he unhurriedly turned the doorknob. To Harry's surprise, there were no locking spells on the door, which a paranoid former Death Eater would otherwise be inclined to cast. That alone should have been a clue, or at least stop him from barging in so carelessly – but Harry was never one of those who ask first, and do later.

"Sorry to interrupt, but–"

Somewhere along the way, he lost the second part of that sentence. What went on in the classroom, took Harry's breath away more effectively than the portal that outstretched on half the wall. It was still spitting out single time particles and shimmering streaks of light.

Throughout his student career, Harry could not remember ever having had the opportunity to observe Snape at work. Yes, he remembered his orders well, his complicated instructions on the blackboard, ominous glares and the strolling around the classroom just to point out all the possible errors. But, if Harry was ever wondering why exactly Snape had received the title of the "Potions Master" at the end of his education… Well, the answer seemed pretty obvious now.

Severus tended three separate cauldrons with grace and speed no one would ever suspect of his generally unpromising and lanky figure. Nonetheless, he was now swiftly shredding, cutting, crushing and grating appropriate ingredients, using different knives with frightening expertise and not even once looking into any book. Every now and then he murmured something to himself while stirring or mixing, watchful to use the right direction in each individual cauldron.

Harry realised that Snape must know the complicated formula by heart. Contrary to his own deep-rooted prejudices against the nasty ex-teacher, he was in awe. Such brewing was reminiscent of a truly mystical ritual.

"Salazar have mercy," hissed Snape impatiently, leaning with both palms on the worn, soiled table made of raw wood, in which uncountable amounts of potions disasters had soaked in over the years.

"Do you need something, Potter?"

Harry shook off his initial numbness, realising he had been discovered – on the other hand, he was not actually hiding. Just standing idly in the middle of the classroom, not really knowing what to do next.

While manic as a stormy night Snape just cursed at Harry and returned to the mixing of the central cauldron's contents, the Auror seemed to regain control over his own legs. Quietly, he crept closer, observing with fascination the perfectly equal piles of ingredients and mysterious substances that were neatly stacked on the table.

"Potter…" Snape used his well-known sinister tone, which was usually accompanied by humiliatingly unfair question, which only purpose was not education, but rather taking away the points and feeding Snape's own unhealthy satisfaction.

"I was just leaving," the Auror gasped hurriedly, when the former teacher's bony hand reached towards a narrow carafe with a thick, oily liquid.

"Hand me that carafe," Snape ordered.

Stunned, Harry immediately did as he was told. He silently watched as the Potions Master carefully added exactly two drops to the right cauldron. Without looking at Harry, Snape outstretched his hand with the carafe and Harry immediately put it back in place. Severus stirred the middle potion three times clockwise and once counter-clockwise, then straightened up and pushed the Auror to the side.

"Step back," he ordered firmly.

Right in that very moment, suffocating violet fumes burst out from the cauldron, immediately permeating the whole room. However, the thick fog set very quickly – almost as quickly as it had appeared. Harry coughed a couple of times, while Severus, stern as always, picked up the right cauldron, poured its contents into the left one and then poured that into the middle one.

 _"_ _There will be no_ _foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class?"_

Upon hearing those words, _his words_ , Severus glanced furtively at Harry, who was smirking rather arrogantly. They stood next to each other in the unspoken agreement; Harry – all grown up, and Professor Snape – still as tall and nasty as ever, but somehow less frightening.

"A vial, Potter," Snape growled. "Size six, if you please."

He pointed towards the rack with sterilized laboratory glassware, and then turned to the still restless portal. Harry obliged. With the greatest caution, Severus took a ladle and poured just a bit of the finished potion into the vial. Then, Harry decided to give vent to doubts that had plagued him throughout the evening:

"This potion really helps you find everything that's lost?"

" _Lost!_ Really… Simple _Accio_ would have sufficed for _that."_

With a certain triumph, Severus looked at the still seething substance, which wasn't that different from the luminous smoke coming out of the portal.

"But–"

"I suppose they did not send you here empty-handed," Snape interrupted him sharply. "Let's not waste more time, Mr Potter."

Realising that the only genuinely polite conversation he has ever had with Snape was now officially over, Harry pulled out a woman's hat from his jacket pocked and handed it to Snape. The former Slytherin carefully stirred the vial and poured its contents onto the slightly rumpled hat, which immediately fluttered and rose into the air.

"Open the door," he told Harry.

Snape was looking rather pleased with himself. He expected the potion to work, of course. There was no doubt about it. Nonetheless, it's always nice to admire a job well done.

However, like any magical craft, Potions also have their disappointing moments. Instead of floating out the door, or anywhere else really, Septima Vector's hat flew straight into the portal.


	7. Chapter 7

At this time of night, the castle was immersed in darkness and silence. The only sources of light were the antique chandeliers and _Lumos_ from Harry Potter's wand. He still wouldn't leave him alone. The Saviour of the Wizarding World scampered through the dark after the Potions Master like a very inquisitive puppy, while the older wizard tried just about anything to get rid of him.

"Where are we going?"

"Why are you still here?"

When they walked to the Grand Staircase, Severus started praying to all forces mighty and evil to let him push Potter on some faulty step. Unfortunately, the years of roaming around Hogwarts must have left their mark, because the insufferable Gryffindor seemed to find his way around Hogwarts pretty well. Snape began to consider whether it was possible to roll his eyes even more.

"Potter, there really is no need for your assistance."

"Oh, but it's no problem."

"Potter!"

"Alohomora."

In that very moment, Severus bitterly regretted having no wand. Not even because he couldn't have otherwise gotten to the sixth floor. If he had one, at least he would have had something to stab Potter with. Snape looked at the Gryffindor coldly and pushed first into the corridor. Harry, of course, followed.

"If Professor Vector had fallen into the portal, can we pull her back out?"

"And how exactly would you know that she had, Potter?"

Severus tried to be calm, but he felt he had lost his touch. Perhaps it was due to those moments of doubt in his Potions expertise…

"Well, otherwise you'd have to give back your Potions diploma, now wouldn't you?"

Potter smiled wryly to himself, almost bumping into the armour that stood around the corner. Unfortunately, the annoying boy was right. Snape couldn't have made a mistake – not when it came to potions, and certainly not that exact potion.

"You can go now. Not a peep to Minerva, though."

"Are you joking? Now it's getting interesting." Harry pointed towards the heavy, fancifully draped curtain that hanged on the stone wall, and seemed to be nothing more but a decoration. "Just what exactly are we here?"

Severus looked like he was about to breathe fire, but stopped himself and looked at Potter a bit closely. For the first time since they saw each other again, Harry had shown other emotion than just cold contemplation. "Cold and collected" wasn't exactly how Snape would have described him back in the days.

"Do you miss him?" he asked, then immediately regretted doing so.

He despised such discussions to the very core. Just as expected, the Auror stared at him with his huge, green eyes, seeking approval and consolation. Snape winced and gritted his teeth, pushing the boy away.

"How–"

"Doesn't matter. Forget I asked."

Snape faced the wall and started to touch the stones, in hope to find the secret passage. If he remembered correctly, this is where Septima Vector's bedroom quarters used to be — since the woman was lazy and didn't want to traverse half the castle in order to get to the Arithmancy classroom.

"How did you know?" Potter remained in the same spot, only now he looked offended. _Finally!_

"You used Legilimency on me? You know it's illegal now, right?"

Snape sneered wickedly, then crouched and tried to find the door. Salazar, have mercy! He wouldn't use Legilimency on somebody who wears his heart on his sleeve; there was just no point in it. Not that he had made any inquiries about who had died during the Battle of Hogwarts, but Draco told him anyway. At first Severus thought that the Weasleys had not attacked him just yet because he was so proficient at hiding, and because Potter had dared to divorce the youngest Weaslette, but now… The truth was quite different. The ginger part of The Golden Trio had perished in the battle. Snape didn't really know how to comment, so he decided to change the subject:

"Oh really? I would just love to see the Aurors chase me down for that particular crime." He got up. "Legilimency does not leave traces, as I'm sure you remember, Potter," he added smugly.

"We don't need any investigations for that. We use veritaserum."

"Veritaserum! Really, Potter. I see that your government is still on the warpath?" His silky-smooth tone was soaked in heavy irony.

"What do you mean?" Harry furrowed his eyebrows.

"The Dark Lord had the nasty habit of using veritaserum, Potter." He turned towards Harry just for a second. "And Barty Crouch senior during the Death Eaters trial."

Harry folded his arms and gave him a superior look.

"And so did you, Snape."

For a moment Severus looked like he really wanted to say something, but then changed his mind. He decided that his years of educating absolute morons have passed, now was the time for more urgent problems. The damned woman has closed her cave shut and there was just no way he could get in, at least not without a wand.

"What if she had set the same security spells like the ones on Diagon Alley?"

Just when he thought it was over, Potter decided to wash him again in the splendour of his eloquence.

"What are you–"

But before Snape could brew a suitable amount of venom that he could pour into each and every word, his unwanted companion whisked out his wand and touched the bricks in the same sequence as he would the bricks in the wall behind the "Leaky Cauldron". Just when Severus was about to protest, the floor trembled slightly and the rope entwined around the curtain unwrapped spontaneously. The curtain dropped to the floor with a slight rustle. A door behind it creaked loudly.

"It's just like a 'one, two, three, four' PIN code. It's easy to remember."

"What?"

Harry was the first to go behind the curtain. Severus immediately followed, though with considerable distrust. During his teaching career at Hogwarts he had not developed many close friendships… all right – none, actually. But he managed to get to know some of the teachers sufficiently well, and Septima Vector was never particularly fond of him. The feeling was, obviously, mutual, so now Snape was expecting hidden traps at every step.

* * *

 _Every new beginning is difficult, however Snape's was simply awful. Not that he was complaining about Dumbledore, but Voldemort had at least given him realistic career opportunities, while the Headmaster… gave him an unlimited access to birdbrains. And not even the kind he could use in potions._

 _Once again in his life, Severus was trapped. At the very beginning he decided he would endure three years and then decide what to do next – perhaps some notable establishment of a more academic approach will consider his application? In the worst-case scenario, he was ready to settle for the National Magical Library, if that would save him from brewing the Pepper-Up Potion for the n-th time._

 _However, he had underestimated Dumbledore. After several years of sending out résumés to the gradually less and less prestigious places, Snape began to analyse all the rejections a little bit closely. He finally realised that nearly all of them had been written in a similar manner and that the problem didn't lie in his qualifications. In most cases, he was overqualified and still – nobody would dare to hire him. His reputation preceded him and not in a good way, too. The only way out of Hogwarts would be a hearty recommendation that he knew he would never get from Dumbledore. Salazar, the Headmaster wouldn't even give him a more decent job and had instead sentenced him to a bleak existence in the dungeons! Not only that. He had to spend his days among brats and the meagre paycheque could serve him as a toilet paper, at best._

 _"_ _In or out?" a horse voice said behind him._

 _Ah, indeed. Working as a socially rehabilitated ex-Death Eater was already sufficiently humiliating and very Victorian indeed, but nothing proved more upsetting than working alongside hopeless twits like this one. Without turning around, Snape went into the Great Hall and marched towards the staff table like a one-person Gestapo. His black coat billowed behind him evilly as he walked. It was still a bit damp from the rain that caught him after he had sneaked out for his morning cigarette. Snape had to admit though, that he really liked the ominous effect and should probably get it licensed._

 _When he sat in his place at the very edge of the table, he asked himself the question that would eventually resurface time and again: what the hell was he doing with his life?_

 _Snape hated to eat in public. He hated people in general and simply loathed watching them eat, too. The very idea of food in other people's mouths was disgusting. There was nothing worse than having to sit and politely engage in pointless conversations while trying not to vomit after every "school spirit and friendship" pep-talks from Dumbledore._

 _"_ _Pass the salt."_

 _Propped on his elbow, he obliged and pushed the said object towards the annoying witch. For the reasons unbeknownst to him, she would always ask him for salt during meals. Frankly, he was so used to it that he didn't mind anymore._

 _"_ _I'm going to have a stroke," he said darkly._

 _Her slightly swollen eyes were no less tired than his, though for some reason the damnable woman had more energy in her than a three-month puppy._

 _"_ _I would try to postpone it on Friday, if I were you."_

 _She gave the salt back, though unnecessarily – his plate remained empty as always. He didn't even know why he let himself get caught up in a conversation with her, though on the other hand… Worse things could happen than morning banter with Septima Vector. At least that way the time passed faster._

 _Before he could stop himself, he started to analyse her. The swelling around the eyes could be allergies, since he never suspected her to read late into the night or, Merlin forbid, brew potions. Personally, he couldn't fathom why someone so young could have ever gotten the position as important as the Arithmancy professor. Damned child must have been somebody's daughter, cousin, goddaughter or Salazar knows what else. There was just no way. How old was she anyway? Never mind. She was just as incompetent as the lot of them._

 _"_ _I shall oblige then," he growled and carefully poured himself more coffee._

 _"_ _Good." She smiled ominously and he immediately remembered why exactly he had heard rumours of her alleged education at Durmstrang._

 _She finished her scrambled eggs and elegantly wiped her mouth with a napkin._

 _"_ _Though not for you. Next week you'll be supervising the trip to Hogsmeade," she said._

 _"_ _What?" he hissed, frowning so hard that for a moment he caught a glimpse of fear on her face. She quickly returned to her usual grimace of contempt, though._

 _"_ _Out of the two of us, I'm the only one that has an important date, I presume?"_

 _She threw the napkin on her chair and walked out of the Great Hall in a manner that resembled a catwalk model._

 _There were days when Severus had an intimate understanding for Voldemort's reasons. He had to admit that in the very beginning, all this murderous plans against the humanity did not sound very appealing, but the longer he stayed on the leash of the second most powerful wizard in history, the more he missed his old ways._

* * *

"What exactly are we looking for?"

Potter looked around the messy room with a healthy dose of scepticism.

He ignited an old-fashioned oil lamp on the windowsill and hastily closed the window with a spell. A penetrating chill had spread throughout the room, though Snape seemed to have been more disgusted with the mess, than the cold. When Harry moved the lamp from the windowsill to the stained coffee table that stood in the middle of the room, the dim glow illuminated what could be considered "a perfectionist's hell". The draft had scattered various notes and pieces of parchment on the carped and the unmade bed. On one of the armchairs that stood in the corner was a pile of crumpled clothes. On the other one that stood by the desk, laid a giant stack of books. Most of the books, as Snape immediately noticed, were borrowed from the Restricted Section in the library. A bookcase wedged into a corner contained not only a lot more different volumes, but also maps, sheets of Very Important Papers, notes, notebooks, textbooks and old crossword puzzles. The chaos had no beginning, no end, nor any kind of meaning. The only person, who could possibly have moved around in it more or less freely, was undoubtedly the owner and its direct perpetrator.

"Snape?"

Severus gritted his teeth at the sound of his own name in Harry's mouth, but on the other hand decided that squabbling with him about the proper way of addressing him would be more than pointless right now. Instead, he dug out a box of matches from underneath another pile of papers, and lit another lamp. Using it to guide himself, he approached the disorganised bookcase in search of clues.

"That wench," he growled a moment later.

He pushed aside the books stacked on the top shelf and pulled out the one stuck on the very edge: "Orgelbracht's Complete Encyclopaedia of Classified Hexes and Other Sinister Spells".

"What is that?"

"For years I tried to borrow it from the library, and this damned witch has been holding onto the only copy!"

"Is this a special book or something?"

Severus turned to him sharply, bringing the lamp closing to his face so as to better accentuate the hatred in his eyes.

"As an Auror you should have an intimate knowledge its contents, Potter!"

Harry just shrugged and focused on the notes and scraps of papers littering the floor. He picked one up and began to study it closely.

"You know, when you put that lamp so close to your face, it makes you look like a ghoul. Unless that was your intention, then carry on."

Barely holding back the urge to murder the annoying kid with a chair, Severus pressed the book to his chest and stepped over a crumpled up robe. He tried to find the thing they actually came for. He pulled a piece of paper from Harry's hands and lifted it to the light.

"Hey!" yelped Harry.

As soon as Snape scanned the scribbles, his scowls and menacing comments stopped. He read it more closely. His dark eyebrows furrowed so hard that they almost met at the base of his nose. When he finished reading, he immediately put down the lamp and gently straightened out the paper.

"Where did you find this?" Snape asked in all seriousness.

Potter pointed towards the place. Severus bent down and grabbed the first piece of paper on the right. He quickly scanned through the first few sentences, then immediately picked up the third and fourth page. They were all covered in equations and complicated diagrams.

"What is that? And dear God, why are you smiling?"

Harry took a step back towards the desk when Snape firmly pushed the Gryffindor's leg aside, under which laid another piece of paper. Instead of a coherent response, Snape grew even more silent. For a moment, the Potions Master followed Septima's chaotic thinking, and finally, methodically and in a perfect sequence, he picked up all of the notes. He sat in the armchair in the corner — firstly having pushed down the pile of clothes to the floor.

"Professor?"

Harry called him that on purpose, but even that wasn't able to break Snape away from his scientific discovery. For a person who had always regarded other people's theories with absolute aversion, Snape seemed to be completely in tune with the mind map created by the person he had always considered to be an intellectual zero.

"Is there something about the portals?" asked Harry impatiently.

Snape finally raised his head, though only just to scold him with an irritated gaze. He returned to browsing through the notes, mumbling under his breath like a madman that Harry had always thought him to be — although, to be honest, Snape was now presenting even more symptoms of insanity than ever.

"This is idiotic." Potter picked up one of the open books scattered under the desk. He flipped a few pages, at which Snape yelled in panic:

"Leave it, Potter!"

He threw the papers onto the bed and lunged towards Harry, snatching the textbook out of his hands. He put the book on the carpet, flipping through the pages until he found the chapter he wanted. He laid the book beside the notes, and then changed their initial order and looked around presenting, what Harry thought, all indications of absolute psychosis.

"Where is Algenhoff! I've seen it somewhere…"

"What?"

The Auror slowly began to doubt his own senses, when suddenly the Potions Master's bony hand shot towards a small, purple book discarded on the carpet. "Advanced Quantum Theory of Magic and Applied Algebra" by E.J. Algenhoff was a modest-sized book, though it seemed to have fit perfectly into the incoherent reasoning of one Septima Vector, which one Severus Snape was now trying to recreate.

Snape ran his long finger on the spine of the book and opened it on the page tabbed with a torn-out piece of parchment.

"Where is it… Where did she find it?" Severus muttered to himself, and then he found the sentence, unevenly underlined with a pencil. "HA!"

He focused back on the notes and pulled out another paper with a muddled graph on it. He put it next to the ones previously laid on the floor.

"Potter!" He grabbed the Auror's ankle at the precise moment in which Potter wanted to discreetly withdraw from the general lunacy he wished to be no part of.

"Oh?" he gasped with resignation, wondering how exactly he should word for Professor McGonagall the fact that their last hope for solving the mystery of the portals was totally and completely bananas.

"I need a large parchment, two quills, red ink and a copy of 'Advanced Babylonian Astronomy'." Snape looked around the room. "Although…" He stood up and unceremoniously pushed Potter aside, heading back to the bookcase.

"Damnable woman…" Severus made a grimace that resembled a smile.

Snape returned to his previous position on the carpet, clutching a sizable book. He rolled up his sleeves and in the middle of it he looked impatiently at the still stunned Gryffindor. Harry was now considering Flooing St. Mungo's — not because he was especially concerned for Snape's wellbeing, it was just that he felt in need of an immediate psychiatric assistance himself.

"Today, Potter, if you please, I need them today!" growled Snape, pulling together the scribbles full of arithmetic pandemonium.

Harry almost ran into the hallway, and Severus delved into the depths of the portal theory — which, though rampant, with every new information was beginning to make more and more sense. Potter disappeared for over an hour, which Snape took with a relief. At last he was able to hear himself think again.

When the Auror finally came back, he wasn't alone. At first Severus didn't notice, because he had just passed through a maze of twisted mathematical mess, slayed the quantum Minotaur and returned more than victorious.

"Severus…" Professor McGonagall looked slightly startled.

She observed the confusing disarray on the carpet, which the Potions Master was now an integral part of.

"Give me that!" Severus took a moment from the books and snatched a large roll of parchment from Harry.

"Hi, Sev. I heard that you finally went bonkers."

"We shall see." With a terrifying smirk, Severus took from Draco the two bottles of ink he had asked for and the two quills.

Why Potter had brought his godson along, he couldn't fathom. Probably as a mascot of sorts, Salazar only knew.

Severus arranged the lamps on the windowsill, and then carefully set up his new artistic workshop on the desk, from which he had thrown off all the unnecessary papers with one swift movement.

"Severus…"

Professor McGonagall was now watching the raging Potions Master with no less dubious expression than before.

He wasn't listening at all. He looked over his shoulder at the notes on the carpet, then dipped one quill in red ink and drew a perfectly straight line on the parchment. Then, in black, he added complicated calculations and symbols, which he then merged with another graph, all the while turning and checking with the original writings of the equally insane Arithmancy professor.

When the initial confusion began to make sense, Professor McGonagall was the first to dare to come closer.

"Dear Merlin…" she whispered in disbelief, to which Severus responded with a sneer.

He wrote everything down and when the last symbol and the last flawless line were finished, he took a step back, admiring his work from a distance.

"What is this?" Draco approached sceptically, wanting to see for himself the tangible proof of the Potions Master's craziness.

"You figured out how they form? The portals?" Harry asked.

"Nobody is able to predict the emergence of a portal, Potter," Severus scolded him angrily.

Professor McGonagall carefully moved her wand over the parchment, gently detaching the complicated writings from its surface and hanging them up in the air, in the middle of the room. They lit up with a dim light. Snape looked at them with some pride and touched the projection, which buzzed almost angrily.

"Nobody is able to predict their formation, at least not with a high percentage of probability," he repeated slowly. "But… by applying an exactly opposite equation, they can be successfully closed."


	8. Chapter 8

"So… you didn't want to Apparate home or are you really so fond of those beds?"

Hermione raised her head, instinctively reaching for her rumpled white coat, which hanged on the back of a chair.

"What time is it?" She rubbed her sleepy eyes and put on shoes.

Neville gave her a warm smile.

"A bit after three." Seeing that she was drowsy, he changed his mind about pulling her out of bed. "Sleep. I'll take care of this myself."

"I'm already up."

"It's just a spattergroit."

"Just!"

Hermione walked out the door, braiding her hair as she quickly paced the corridor.

"It's the third case only this month!"

Neville shut the door to the social room and followed her to the elevators. When they went inside, he pushed the second floor button and looked sceptically at his friend.

"Don't panic, it's easily cured."

"Not with those 'modern' mothers who refuse to cast warding spells on their children!"

"Here we go again…"

"It's just ridiculous! Any moment now we could have an epidemic!"

On the first floor, two elder healers entered the elevator. Just as the door was about to close, a tiny purple airplane made of paper flew behind the two wizards.

"Doctor Granger, doctor Longbottom," greeted them one of the healers.

"Doctor Edgecombe. Doctor Grimsby! How is the patient from the third?" asked Hermione.

"Fantastic, Granger, fantastic. You really helped us quite a bit, I must say." The older of the two looked on the patient card that Neville was holding, but found nothing notable on it.

"Where did you learn to brew a Volubilis like that, Granger?"

"Well, actually, during my fifth year…"

"Of medical studies?"

"At Hogwarts."

Both men looked at her, now equally impressed. When the elevator stopped on the second floor, Hermione nodded politely and the healers let her through first. Neville managed to get out at the very last moment, before the heavy doors slammed shut. Purple airplane darted through the gap, too. It was now following Hermione like a faithful dog.

"I wonder if all the symptoms are similar." She raced through the hospital corridor, thinking out loud.

"Hermione…"

"Maybe we missed something? After all, every magical child is vaccinated–, I'm sorry… I meant to say, I mean: all the protective spells are cast on each new-born at the hospital, it would be impossible that an epidemic of such ordinary–"

"Hermione!"

"What!"

She stopped in front of the double door that led to the west wing.

"Slow down! Why are you in such a hurry?"

Neville was barely able to catch his breath. Hermione looked at him and shook her head.

"Really, Neville… If I didn't know any better, I'd think that you do not want me here."

"I didn't say–"

"Then why did you wake me up in the first place?" Her eyes narrowed.

"Because it's in the hospital regulations. Two healers on call must both be present! And conscious."

When Hermione still looked at him piercingly, he finally surrendered:

"You can't blame me, you already got your residency!"

"And you will get yours too!"

" _I_ am not a catchy headline," he said wryly, smirking unlike himself.

"Stop it."

"Hermione, what I mean is–"

"What! What exactly do you mean? That I'm taking your job away from you?" She took a step forward, looking at him angrily, to which Neville reacted in the same patient way as usual.

"You don't have to work yourself to death. When was the last time you had slept for more than a few hours?"

Hermione fell silent for just a moment, before she resumed her march through the hospital corridor.

"Neville, we don't have time for this. Besides, Einstein slept three hours a day."

"Einstein wasn't responsible for hundreds of thousands of patients."

"That's not… I–"

"Hermione." He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Look at your hands."

Hermione looked down, wrinkling her nose slightly at the sight of her own shaking palms.

"Hm," she acknowledged reluctantly.

In that moment, the purple airplane finally caught up with her and almost stabbed her in the eye.

"Bloody hell!" She pushed it away, before grabbing it and unfolding impatiently.

"What is this?" Neville released her shoulders from his grasp and now watched her with even greater concern than before.

She recognised the handwriting right away. After all, she had helped its owner correct thousands of essays. When Hermione scanned through the hastily written message, her tired face went even paler.

* * *

"Not that I'm complaining, but we're out of gin."

"Oh, shut up!" Draco slammed the front door so hard that it could have frightened his long-gone ancestors.

Lucius waited for him in the hallway. He tightened the belt of his robe and waved his empty glass begrudgingly.

"Well. I suppose no one will be offended if I open your wedding champagne," he thought out loud.

"Why, help yourself," hissed Draco, untying his tie.

He was still a little shaken after tonight's events and Snape's surprisingly powerful intellect. If what he had been going on about was true, then… Then Draco needed coffee. And vodka. Although he knew that he would probably not find the latter in this house.

"What a disappointment… We got this bottle from Ophelia, at your christening."

"I have no bloody idea who Ophelia is." Draco went to the kitchen to set up the coffee machine, over which he and Lucius had already had five separate fights. Malfoy senior, who had also lost the abovementioned fights, now summarised his disapproval in one eloquent snort towards the silver abomination that his own child had the audacity to place in his household.

" _My mother Ophelia!_ We were supposed to drink it during the ceremony…" Lucius leaned back dramatically on the refrigerator, from which Draco calmly took out a can of coffee.

"I think you mean _after_ the ceremony?" He put a cup under the boiling stream of water and pretended he wasn't really paying attention to his father.

"In your hopeless case one should toast whichever opportunity that presents itself, really."

The look Lucius' son gave him, could kill. When Draco finally sat down with his coffee and took off his shoes, Lucius leaned over him like the nightmare he was and threw on the table the evening edition of the "Daily Prophet", which he apparently took out of nowhere.

"Where have you been all day?" Lucius hissed suspiciously. His breath made Draco tear up.

"None of your business." He firmly pushed Lucius aside and read the headline, which was magically enhanced and blinked like neon.

Once the meaning of the words hit Draco with full force, he went pale as a ghost.

"Oh no…"

"Oh yessss…" Lucius sat next to his son and downed half of the still very hot contents of his cup.

Draco crumpled the newspaper in a ball and threw it on the floor. An expression of absolute indifference quickly returned to his face.

"What do you even want?"

"Why, it's not me who loses after this." Lucius smiled slyly and titled his head. "Good luck with fixing your reputation after that rumour spreads again, sonny boy. Ah, no. I forgot." He covered his mouth in an exaggerated manner. "You and scandals of the House of Malfoy are two completely different things. I'm surprised you kept the name, though–"

"Shut up." Draco stood up and kicked the crumpled newspaper so hard that it flew out of the kitchen. "Bloody journalists!"

"Calm down," Lucius hissed. "It was you who didn't cover up your tracks."

"And what was I supposed to do, huh? Off the witnesses?" Draco growled, circling the kitchen table.

"It would be impossible to hide this forever. And you have to admit that you got away with most of the… unpleasantries." Lucius finished the rest of Draco's coffee since it was, of course, so disgusting.

 _"_ _Got away?"_ Draco approached him instantly, like an angry cobra. "I think I misheard you, you mean to tell me that it was all my fault, that I did THIS," he rolled up his sleeve and showed his father the faded Dark Mark "to myself, is that what you mean!"

Lucius frowned in disgust and pushed his hand away.

"Quit panicking, Draco, nobody is saying that this is your fault."

"Oh, why, HAIL SALAZAR, because for a moment I thought your interpretation of 'no' was 'Take it all and take my soul, too'!"

"You know, in some cases…" Lucius ran his tongue over his teeth.

"Do not bring your bloody rape culture into this, because when you were sitting in Azkaban, I made a small fortune out of people like you." Draco pulled off his jacket and, enraged, threw it on the floor. Lucius was still digesting the last statement with a complete lack of understanding.

"Well, well… The new lord and master of the Malfoy Manor," Lucius mocked.

"Uh, forgive me, but where were you for the past ten years? Who paid the bills?"

"Please! And who had cared for you all your life, made sure you had food on your plate and fancy robes on your back!"

"GOVERNESSES!"

The two remaining Malfoys stood directly opposite to each other, their anger buzzing in the air. Finally, Lucius gave up first and let out a pained sigh.

"Please do not tell me we are going to have another fight over the deportation of that damned squib?"

"Do NOT call her that! Consuela was an angel!"

"YOU WERE THREE! You don't even remember her!"

 _"_ _Y tus cojones son tan blancos como tu cabello!"_

"What does that even mean!"

"I don't know!"

They went silent for a moment, breathing heavily. Once Draco had recovered, he decided to make himself a second cup of coffee. This time, showing mercy and common sense, he made two.

"What am I going to do with all of this?" he said quietly.

Lucius snorted derisively and for the first time in a long time he spoke to his son completely seriously:

"Dress up, dust yourself off, sort out your hair, and go talk to that Skeeter woman, all her scabby family be damned." He put his hand on Draco's shoulder and turned his son's chin upwards.

"Draco."

"Uh," Draco growled, squinting.

"Draco, look at me."

"You stink of alcohol…"

Lucius seemed to be unmoved by the fact.

"Focus. What was always Abraxas Malfoy's main interest?" he asked seriously.

"Money and shagging underage members of his own family? Ow!"

"Lawsuits, my boy!"

* * *

Severus was in a remarkably peaceful mood since he had settled back in his dungeons for good. Minerva was willing to accept it for two reasons only: firstly, the portal seemed to behave entirely gently in Severus' presence, and obviously no further explosions meant never having received the hypothetical howlers from the hypothetically livid parents. Secondly – Snape promised to resume work on the recovery of the missing part of the teaching staff, who had decided to end her life in another galaxy, but was unfortunately rather essential to Minerva if Hogwarts were to continue to offer a course in arithmancy.

However, some foolish individuals, in the face of Snape's recent and much reckless amiability, decided to take it for granted and therefore try to walk all over him. He really should have kept his license to kill when he had the chance…

"Sev."

"I'm busy," he tried to attach his great design to the wall and, having stepped a few paces back, see if it hanged straight.

Various notes, books, volumes and rolls of parchment were scattered on the table in the middle and entire classroom, from which Snape had removed all the desks and chairs.

"Sev…"

"I'm not here!"

"Severrr! You owe me this!"

"Excuse me!" He turned around and sent Draco his offended look number three.

"Severus, it really would have settled many–"

" _Et tu,_ Potter?"

"I'm serious, Sev, there is just no chance that it's all gonna go away now."

"And how exactly is that my problem?" Snape asked darkly, looking very impressive with the buzzing portal behind him.

Draco, oddly unperturbed by the drama, showed him the rumpled newspaper again.

"It is. And look how good you look in the picture, so unlike you…"

"Get out of my dungeon! Both of you!"

"How long has he been waiting to finally say 'my dungeon' again?" asked Draco.

"Three hours, maybe?" said Harry, now slightly amused. "Severus, I really can help with the organisation, it's no problem."

"Well, aren't we the Good Samaritan, Potter?"

Harry just shrugged.

"Apparently taking my name was not enough, now you require my pride as well?" barked Severus and turned around, resuming browsing through Septima's notes. His own scribbles in red ink blurred almost entire contents and caused all of the mess to be readable only for him.

"That's really neat, Sev. Really."

"Uhm, excuse me…"

The three Slytherins and a half (the title which Draco thought Potter has lately proven very deserving of) turned towards the door as if on cue. Harry showed amazing reflexes by immediately conjuring a giant black curtain, which covered up the portal.

"So it really is you, Professor…" The door creaked and in them stood the absolutely last person Snape was expecting to see.

"Granger?" He blinked nervously.

She nodded eagerly, her frizzy mane of curls moving along with each nod. She approached him timidly.

"What are you doing here, Granger?" Severus asked unceremoniously, carefully moving the notes to the other side of the table and pretending that all of this was of no interest to him.

"I came as quickly as I could."

"Why? What is the purpose of you here, Granger?"

"Professor!" To his surprise, she seemed rather pleased to see him, which did not improve his mood in the slightest.

What was going on?

"How did you manage to survive? It's remarkable!" She held out her hand to him, and he took a step back.

"An antidote, Granger," he lied smoothly. "A powerful antidote, a bit of fake blood, quick Glamour, Apparition… Besides, I never leave the house without my passport."

Mercy! A bit of Albus' machinations, some tales about kindness and suddenly every Gryffindor eats out of his hand! Severus was surprised just how quickly she believed him. He had to admit, he was rather disappointed. She never stopped with the questions, this was not the Gryffindor's Encyclopaedia of the Too Detailed and Unnecessary Knowledge he remembered and loathed! Well, not exactly "loathed", Snape hated only the stubbornly stupid ones, while Granger… Great Slytherin, after her sixth year she could have taught his bloody class.

The question remained, however… How did she even know he was here?

The only person entirely unaffected by Hermione's presence was Potter. Potter! Of course. The most faithful student of the greatest manipulator of the twentieth century had to arrange everything, but why? Did he really think that the (most questionable) female charms would convince Severus to his new lunatic idea? _Really!_

"Severus, Hermione and I will help organise everything, we'll get the best journalists–"

"Absolutely not!"

Snape shook his head and returned to studying the experimental instructions of the portal closing.

"Sev, for Salazar's sake!" Draco slammed the "Daily Prophet" on the table, accidently knocking a bottle of ink onto the floor.

Snape's response was almost apoplectic. He dived there with a rag, growling something about his precious dungeons and his very precious floor. Hermione raised an eyebrow at the sight, probably never having witnessed a situation in which Severus Snape would ever clean something without a wand.

"Long story," said Harry, guessing her thoughts immediately.

"Oh, gracious Merlin! _Scourgify!_ " Hermione approached the table and took the crumpled "Prophet". "This is your actual problem, Professor!"

"DEATH EATERS REUNION!" proclaimed the headline, under which was a magically enlarged picture of Severus and Draco strolling together along Diagon Alley.

Hermione shook her head disapprovingly.

"It's absurd, obviously. You can pull this up into at least paragraphs of–"

"Defamation, libel, slander, falsifying the public image, I could have also found something on that tragic angle, it's not really my best shot," said Draco immediately, and Harry smiled slightly behind him.

"So sue them, if you wish. I have my own matters to attend to," summed up Snape, returning to flipping his books and parchments.

"I don't see you taking the matters further," retorted Malfoy.

"Because," hissed Severus "in case you haven't noticed, I cannot necessarily close–"

A quick look in Hermione's direction made him realise that the confession of his miraculous revival was the last straw. It was a conversation enough. As for him, he had always considered Gryffindors overly nosy, overly self-righteous and _overly in his presence_. He had no intention of telling her about the portal.

"That particular door, I mean. Especially since that ridiculous woman decided to venture on an intergalactic journey."

"A journey?" Hermione raised both eyebrows.

"Professor Sprout had a terrible accident involving a remarkably intransigent door frame." Draco slipped into the discussion, wrapping his arm around Hermione and pushing her onto the chair he had just conjured.

"Nothing too serious, though it's a very delicate matter, lots of health hazards and we cannot possibly find a proper locksmith, you know, so Sev, being a dear that he is, is working on a friction potion, you see…"

Snape glared at him evilly and Harry barely supressed a grin. The situation was so absurd that he was surprised that Hermione hasn't yet started to scream. The dark circles under her eyes, however, suggested she had to be seriously under slept. And then there was the fact that it was almost five in the morning…

"Anyway…" Granger smoothed out the somewhat tarnished newspaper. "Professor, I really think that a press conference is your best option. You'll get the chance to explain everything, in your own words. Everyone has to know that you're a hero!"

"They do?" Snape snarled.

"Yes."

"I seriously doubt that."

"Severus, Draco could lose his practice over this," added Harry. "A lawsuit won't help him, either. They'll think he has something to hide."

Malfoy looked at him quickly, evidently awestruck.

"Think about it, Severus," said Harry. "We would bring our positive PR into this, me and Hermione."

"Oi!" interrupted Malfoy, but was thoroughly ignored.

"Let me put it this way: who else is going to solve this if not the brightest witch of her age and–"

"A poison-savvy Death Eater who got his stripes ripped off?"

"Exactly."

Snape was considering rolling his eyes even further back but after some consideration found it potentially anatomically abnormal. Then, a previously unseen page from Septima's notes caught his eye. He paused for a couple of minutes and when he briefly retraced the first few sentences, the whole concept suddenly became wonderfully clear.

"On one condition, Potter…" he murmured slyly, watching with satisfaction as the former students gathered in the dungeon were now listening to him very closely.

* * *

"Mr Snape! Mr Snape! Maphalda Gatswick, _Witch Weekly!_ "

A plump, middle-aged witch almost slapped him in the face with her microphone.

" _Witch–…_ Madam, are you quite certain you are at the right conference? Aw!"

"Mr Snape," the witch continued her question, entirely unmoved by just how evil were the glances that Snape was now giving his godson, while rubbing his sore shoulder. "What is your position on the Centaur autonomy?" she roared.

"The what?" The Potions Master sneered viciously, while Hermione quickly whispered to him about the leaps of tolerance towards the previously oppressed species, which were becoming extremely fashionable in those days. Of course, Severus couldn't have cared less, but well — it was the image that mattered, apparently.

Harry, Draco, Severus and Hermione sat at a table in the largest conference room available in the Auror Department, in which the journalists were unable to fit nonetheless. Reporters' cameras were flashing and their sensation-hungry questions were shouted over each other in a cacophonous manner which resembled the animal kingdom, rather than the United one.

"Mr Potter! Mr Potter, Rufus Broomsby over here, _Quidditch Without Borders._ Mr Potter, do you intend to reunite with the team?"

"No, I don't think so," murmured Harry, clearly unaware of the relevance of the question. "I don't fly with any team, it's still just a hobby."

"I understand, you're afraid you won't beat Ginevra Weasley's average score?" continued the impertinent. "Would've been hard to compete with your ex wife, especially if she's better at it, am I right?"

Harry decided not to answer, giving another journalist a chance to speak. He didn't notice that Draco, with his eyes narrowed dangerously, was now discreetly hexing Broomsby under the table. Hermione was also giving the journalist a look so hateful that if the man had any amount of decency left in him, he would have burst into flames right then and there.

"Mr Snape, Ferdinand Goode reporting for the _Modern Alchemy_." When he heard the name of the newspaper, Severus relaxed quite noticeably – that is, his jaws seemed less clenched than usual.

"Are you planning on making a scientific reprise? Your articles on the use of poisonous fungi in medicinal potions were revolutionary!"

Snape shifted in his uncomfortable chair and then gave a balanced, detailed statement in a tone so uncharacteristically kind that when he finished, Draco looked at his godfather utterly confounded.

"Mr Snape, what about the London Academy of Magical Sciences and the notion of stripping you from the title post-mortem?"

Ferdinand Goode was apparently unsatisfied with such non-scandalous retort, so he decided to boil up the cauldron himself.

The Potions Master gritted his teeth and drawled into the microphone:

"They will have to pry out the diploma from my stiff, dead hands but Merlin knows that if Voldemort couldn't get me, they don't stand a chance either."

Hermione blushed and Draco looked like he had swallowed a frog. He pulled Severus towards him and snapped at him:

"You think _that's_ a positive PR?"

"Miss Granger!"

Meanwhile, an attractive brunette with blood-red lipstick and the same colour of nail polish decided to butt in:

"Miriam Skeeter, the _Daily Prophet_ ," she said, overly nonchalantly. "What do you have to say about your relationship with people accused of supporting He-Who-Must-Not-Be–"

"Let me interrupt you here." Hermione smiled unpleasantly. "Miss Skeeter, you never cease to amaze me. Those trials remain confidential."

"Oh?" the journalist's Self-Writing Quill was moving on the notepad so quickly, that it almost broke through.

"Until they are made public, no one has the right to inquire who had been deemed whom behind Wizengamot's closed doors."

Draco whistled quietly and leaned back on his chair. That was the Miss Know-It-All that he knew and… might consider respecting in the nearest future. Miriam Skeeter went silent and when she tried to ask another question, she was blatantly ignored. The conference had already lasted longer than an hour and everyone, aside from the news vultures, were beginning to feel tired.

"We still have the time for the last question…" Harry looked around the reporters, who were now almost trampling each other. "Yes, you sir, in the second row?"

"Mr Snape, Eddard McCluck, _Northern Herald_. You have to finally address the elephant in the room: where have you been for the past ten years?"

"Well, isn't that rather… obvious?" Severus crossed his arms. "I was in New York."

The response was so straightforward and simple that McCluck was stunned.

"And… For any particular reason?" he squeaked.

"Well, Sting proved to be very convincing in the matter."

Amused murmurs and shy giggles permeated the room. Even Hermione could not recover from the fact that the old Bat from the Dungeons apparently had a sense of humour.

"And what about the people who remained in London and tried to clean your name? Mr Potter claimed he had witnessed your gruesome demise!"

"Mr Potter and I entered a gentlemen's agreement."

Harry's head turned so fast that he almost dislocated his neck.

Severus kept lying and didn't slip even once. Not to mention that his persuasion skills were almost scary at times:

"In exchange for my help in the maters concerning national security, about which I'm still not at liberty to speak of… he gave me the opportunity to go on a more than well-deserved holiday. On a borrowed time."

"So are you planning on disappearing again?"

"I did not say that, but if the British Wizarding World thinks me so indisposed, next time I would advise putting my picture on milk cartons," Severus retorted, causing the next murmur of laughter. "Mr Malfoy could certainly organise a substantial finder's reward."


	9. Chapter 9 – The Final Chapter

_**Thank you all so very much for your wonderful reviews! This is the final chapter, I hope you enjoyed this fanfiction as much as I loved writing it. See you on the other side ;)  
D. Olenska**_

* * *

Severus Snape had just realised he was on the verge of a scientific breakthrough. To be honest, he felt like Captain Nemo or some other sod by Verne and was not entirely happy about the prospect. He never wanted fame or glory. He never wanted adventures. The only thing he ever sought was just enough power so that others would leave him in peace.

"Professor… This is really not a good idea."

Hermione's words pulled him out of his thoughts – which was not entirely a good thing. His brain woke up of a temporary lethargy and started working at full speed now. Since Granger had learned about the portal and after long negotiations agreed to take part in his "expedition", she wouldn't stop listing out all the reasons why something could potentially go very, very wrong. As if he needed a reminder! He knew exactly what might happen to him! Meaning: absolutely everything.

"Be quiet, Granger." He tightened the knot of a thick rope that he had tied around his waist. "If nobody screws anything up, there is a slim chance that this might just work," he lied smoothly.

Draco looked at him sceptically and then focused on the notes, scattered all around the dungeon. They did not sign up for this. When he asked them before the press conference to be absolutely obedient and take part in his insane plan, that's not what everyone had in mind.

"Sev, this is by far the stupidest idea I've ever heard of. And I had once brought a lawsuit against Bertie Botts!"

"I think I told you to be on the lookout," drawled Snape, while Harry looked at Malfoy inquisitively.

"Really? Bertie? For what?" Harry asked.

"Something to do with children's delicate psyche. But really, what did they expect from a man who derives satisfaction from people eating something that tastes like grass or shit."

"Draco!"

"All right, all right! Don't get your tinsel in a tangle."

Malfoy obediently stuck his head out the door, but there was no one coming.

"Professor–"

"Granger, your opinion on this matter had already been delivered, quite extensively and with an essay on top, so in case you have defended a doctorate in arithmancy in the last five minutes…" Here Severus raised a questioning eyebrow, if anyone were to accuse him of not giving Hermione a chance.

Slytherin have mercy, Gryffindor's Encyclopaedia of Infinite Knowledge surely was capable of a similar thing, but alas — there was no confirmation of his sarcastic theory.

"Yes, I thought you mightn't," he continued sardonically. "Therefore, I would kindly ask you to make sure I don't run out of rope."

"Just when I thought you couldn't get more morbid, Sev."

"Do shut up!"

Frankly, all that talking made him nervous, which was currently pointless. Taking a deep breath, Snape took a step towards the portal. He faced it once more, this time sneering wryly in order to cover up for his receding confidence. Conducting dangerous experiments with cauldrons, which contents could potentially burn half his face off, were one thing, but a journey through time and space was something else entirely. Despite the fact that his calculations were, of course, perfect, this was no stroll down Baker Street. He was going to jump straight into space – moreover, after the person he did not even care for. Was his desire to prove intellectual superiority really so strong?

"Have I ever told you how beige is your colour?" Draco started with the sarcasm again, which caused Severus to admit that intellectual superiority was indeed his credo after all. He put on a nineteenth century diver's helmet on, closing it hastily – the whole costume was quite the fitting artefact, found in Filch's junkyard. Snape put the gloves on and nodded to himself.

If his reasoning was correct, and he really could not think of the world in which it wasn't – the job of being wrong belonged to Septima Vector entirely – this had to work.

It seemed that the portal was part of the Ether, and since the Ether was heterogeneous and varied enough to resemble a living organism, Severus had high hopes. The portal was seething and wreaking havoc due to a foreign body present. It made sense that if another one were to fall in, the Ether would react just like a human being with an infection — with a giant sneeze.

When he stepped forward, the time particles spattered around the whole dungeon and Snape held his breath. He fell in and the darkness had swallowed him. A moment later, it started to glow so brightly that he had to close his eyes. He felt like he was falling, falling deep into the nothingness and, however paradoxically it sounded, at the same time he was drifting away. Although it seemed like his journey lasted for hours, it was in fact only seconds – the spacetime worked with him, not against him. It brought him exactly what he was looking for. Something jerked Snape firmly around the waist and he dared to open his eyes for a moment. All around him was thick and sticky darkness, distorted only by a faint flicker of shimmering time particles that passed him lazily.

Suddenly, Severus felt that something fell on him. Without a moment of hesitation, he stretched out his hands and pressed the limp body to himself as tightly as he could. The Ether's reaction was immediate – something threw him backwards and jerked on the rope so hard that for a few seconds he lost his breath. He landed on the dungeon floor, along with unconscious Septima Vector. He took off the helmet, feeling like he was going to suffocate. The whole castle was shaking now and the portal started to spin. It looked like it was seething with rage and was now pulling inside it everything it could find, just like a black hole. Showing self-preserving reflexes, Snape unlinked himself from the rope, grabbed Septima by her robes and ran out the classroom. Harry, Draco and Hermione followed right behind them and closed the door shut just in time. A powerful explosion swept through Hogwarts from the dungeons to the roof.

* * *

 **Four months later**

"You have to admit, the difference between Arabica and Robusta is huge!"

Harry pretended he was interested, but in reality he just wanted to laugh. It was Monday morning and at this stage a coffee was just a coffee – any would taste good.

"Undoubtedly," he muttered, summoning the morning paper with a quick spell.

Draco did not seem convinced, so he pulled the newspaper from Harry and gave him his cup.

"Look! Smell it!"

"All right, I can smell it from here!" Harry laughed and pushed him away firmly.

"I cannot believe you put milk into yours." Malfoy gave Harry's mug a glance of repressed hatred.

"You'll just have to live with it." The Auror snatched the "Prophet" from him and carefully scanned the first and the second page. He hadn't seen any familiar names, so he started to read — not that he would be able to finish, though.

"You need something, Draco?" He adjusted his glasses, pretending not to see or feel that hand on his thigh.

"Attention."

"Why Draco, what would dear Lucius say to that." Harry smirked, slowly ceasing to understand what he was reading in the first place.

"How should I know?" Draco licked his lips and made a face that Harry could have sworn all Malfoys inherit just to entrap unsuspecting virgins. "Isn't that why we sent him to Hawaii?"

"Cheater! Camel!" Shrieked the familiar voice of the portrait hanging in the corridor, and this time Harry couldn't stop himself. Completely ruining the mood, he burst out laughing and wouldn't stop, not even when Draco cast on him a very irritated _Silencio._

* * *

When Minerva McGonagall managed to deal with all the lawsuits from the concerned parents and could finally get to the résumés from the candidates for the Potions Professor position, a scary thought flashed through her head. Was it possible that the alleged course on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position has shifted onto Severus Snape's former job?

No… Surely not. She quickly left those ideas behind her and made herself another cup of tea. Nonsense! Why would someone do something like that? Poor Joan Goodart was still on sick leave and the only other candidate capable of something like that seemed content enough with his new life to refrain from any murderous behaviour. Well… At least she hoped.

* * *

"McLaren!"

A huge lecture hall was filled to the brim with students, who were now trembling with fear. The man strolling in front of the podium stopped in mid-stride and made a gesture like he wanted to throw a piece of chalk at the poor McLaren, but finally decided not to. The professor sneered slyly and the shaken student slowly put down his notes and stood up.

"McLaren, what would happen if I were to add a bit of dragon's blood into a waterclover extract?"

"I…" The student took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice steady.

" _Marsilea quadrifolia_ , McLaren."

"Dragon's blood doesn't have any properties, Professor, it's the potion which makes it–"

"Really?" Snape interrupted him and leaned back on his desk, looking at the frightened young man with a strange gleam in his eye. "Are you quite sure?"

The sleeves of his black shirt were rolled up just enough that the faded outline of the Dark Mark was clearly visible, which always let him terrorise the students even farther. After all, what was the point of being a reformed Death Eater if one couldn't take advantage of the fact?

In light of the recent events, at least three Wizarding universities have managed to fight over Severus Snape. The slightly less prestigious one had won, but it was also the one that agreed to almost all of his whims without even so much as batting an eye: he would not conduct seminars – only lectures, he wrote his own syllabus and held the right to fail anyone — if he wanted and when he wanted to. As long as the appropriate level of the said unfortunate individual's idiocy was proven, which was never a particular problem for one Severus Snape. Even though the legends of his vile character began to circulate even before the beginning of the semester, and the most important criterion for being able to attend Snape's classes was the absurd requirement of having nearly a perfect point average, his lecture hall was always full.

"McLaren." Severus stepped away from his desk and walked towards the first row, causing a slight commotion. All the students, who were insane enough to do anything else besides frantic note taking or listening to Professor Snape in an absolute awe, were now trying to pretend that they at least knew what they were doing there. Nobody has ever seen Snape casting a curse on someone, but his reputation preceded him. No one would be foolish enough to provoke him.

"Are you capable of explaining to the rest of the class what exactly is a waterclover and give its three varieties that hold similar properties?"

Severus stood in front of the unfortunate student, who shook his head. A painful moan escaped McLaren's lips.

"And you thought you would be safer in the last row…" Severus sneered and handed McLaren the piece of chalk. "Write on the blackboard the four most common varieties typical to Central Europe, along with their proper classification… If you please."

When the student eagerly rushed to the front, thankful he wasn't asked to leave the room, Severus gestured towards him.

"McLaren."

"Professor?" The big doe eyes staring at him were unable to touch his stone-cold heart even a little bit.

"McLaren, why didn't you ask me which classification method I wanted you to use?"

The jittery student gulped loudly, feeling that the chalk begins to soften in his sweaty palm. Severus stepped calmly to the first row, passing the student indifferently.

"While McLaren packs his things and leaves my classroom as quietly as possible, let us move on to the Muggle classification method closest to the Wizarding one, which is…?"

The hand of the student sitting in the very first row shot up, as per usual. She stared at the Potions Master with complete and utmost reverence, which he completely ignored. He was too busy scanning the room for his next victim.

The board of Magical Academy of Science and Wizarding Medicine was entirely aware of the fact that by hiring Snape, they have just won the lottery. Aside from the thousands of complaints and having to endure his completely exhausting character, the first year turnout has never been so high, and the tuitions paid so zealously.

When that day Severus had finally finished all his paperwork and was ready to leave, it was already dark. He buttoned up his black coat, the green scarf fluttering behind him as if he was starring in a black-and-white film from the nineteen-fifties.

"Professor!"

A very familiar voice called after him. He quickened his pace, not wanting to engage in conversation with that annoying woman. She managed to catch up with him, the wench — his own carbon copy of Granger. What on earth has he done to deserve this?

"Watson," he growled, narrowing his dark eyes hatefully, hoping that the student would leave him alone.

"Johnson," she corrected him, grinning happily.

She was holding books, undoubtedly to add herself a few IQ points. Her hands were slightly red from the frost and so were her cheeks. Her smile was entirely too broad and he felt entirely too ambushed.

"Johnson, if this is about your Ph.D. again, let me stop you right there–"

Yes. Let's get rid of her quickly. Stifle her dreams and stomp on them.

"Professor, I completely reformulated my thesis, the–"

"Johnson, I've had enough." He was using his special murderous tone now. "I said it once and I do not like to repeat myself." He moved closer to her, trying to intimidate her with her height and get rid of her faster. Unfortunately, the annoying kid was adamant. The bright eyes were still focused on him and the hopelessly charming smile was still there.

"Muggle hallucinogenic mushrooms," she said and with that, he had to admit, she took him entirely by surprise.

"What did you say?"

"I can prove that they have magical properties that don't work on Muggles because of their unique DNA coding sequences. Their chromosome sequences are slightly different than ours. Professor," she added quickly, only now remembering he was her superior after all.

Well. He had to admit that this was not entirely nonsensical. What she had given him before didn't even stick together but now… He was intrigued. He had never heard of a thesis like this. Of course he was not going to break his anti-seminar rules for her, but he wouldn't be himself if he were to miss the opportunity of showing his intellectual superiority.

"Johnson…" Snape sighed heavily and looked at his watch, which stopped working precisely four months ago, to the day. "What I'm about to say would make absolutely no sense ten years ago, but since time tends to show certain inconsistencies… Would you like to talk it over Firewhisky?"


End file.
